Just three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Andrew Filipoviych volunteered to join Ukraine’s army.
“For me, it was very easy. I expected that the war would happen,” Filipoviych told Global News. “I wasn’t the one who didn’t believe that the war was possible and that we would be friends with Russia and all of those things.”
Filipoviych says he spent three months training in Lviv before being sent to Poltava, where he worked as a drone pilot.
However, four months in, he was badly injured after he was hit by three pieces of shrapnel from a tank shell.
“My bone was destroyed very badly, and it took seven months to consolidate the bone,” he said. “And as soon as I could (walk), I came back to my unit.”
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After returning to duty, though, Filipoviych says his injury proved to be too much.
He retired from the military and, this past February, he and his wife decided to start a new life in Canada, where they will welcome their first child in September.
“We decided to move to Canada to bring our baby to a more safe place than Ukraine is now,” he said. “Luckily, my wife she applied for a visa a year ago and she applied for my documents, too. I was like laughing at her, like ‘What? Canada?’ In that moment, it was something for me that felt unreal.”
Volodymyr Yoroshenko also volunteered to join the Ukrainian army.
He felt compelled to defend his country, but the father of three was hospitalized after becoming shell-shocked by constant gunfire and bombing.
After fighting on the front lines for about eight months, he demobilized and joined his family in Germany, where they had been living since he joined the army.
Yoroshenko received his Canadian citizenship in December and moved to Kelowna in March. Now, he’s waiting for his wife and three children to join him here, too.
Volodymyr says Yoroshenko “only positive impressions of Kelowna and Canada so far, so he doesn’t regret in any way his decision.”
When asked if they will ever make a return to Ukraine, both stated they are hopeful to go back and be reunited with their family and friends — but not until the war is over and it’s safe to do so.