Living, fighting, losing, winning: A Ukrainian soldier reflects on a year of war

On Feb. 24, 2022, veteran Leonid Ostalsev heard rockets fire at 4:30 in the morning. 

Soon after, the 35-year-old received a call from Kyiv’s chief of police asking him to defend the city. 

“The army gave us time to create a few waves of defending forces, and we were thinking that it would be a battle for Kyiv. But our Ukrainian armed forces, they [did] their job so [well] that no one [was] in Kyiv,” he recalled.

This week marks one year since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

Ostalsev had anticipated getting a call to report for duty in the weeks leading up to Feb. 24. Tens of thousands of Russian troops were already accumulating near Ukraine’s borders. 

The situation in Ukraine was tense. It was hard for Ukrainians to believe that there would be a full-scale invasion by Russia into Ukraine. Yet, people were already taking first-aid classes, self-defense courses and preparing evacuation routes.

Before the full-scale invasion, Ostalsev was running Veterano Pizza, a pizzeria in Kyiv that hired other veterans. He also helped veterans start their own businesses. 

Today, he’s serving in Ukraine’s patrol police, which works closely with Ukraine’s military, and has witnessed a great deal of loss and destruction on the front lines. 

In the Donbas region, he led evacuation missions — amid live fire from Russian troops — helping residents flee villages and cities that were under attack.

During a stop over in the southern city of Mykolaiv, Ostalsev said that the Russian military is becoming “smarter and more accurate” with their fighting. 

“Four months ago, here in this place in the south, we [were] trying to find the enemy positions … [and], you know, you have so many opportunities to kill [them]. … Now, we don’t see anyone because they [are] hiding. They want to leave. And this is not good, you know, for us,” he explained.

Ostalsev said that the Ukrainian military is most in need of heavy artillery like tanks and guns as the war continues.

“I don’t have any hopes,” Ostalsev said. “It’s a war and this can be anything, so the most important thing for me is the safety of my family, my ex-wife and my son,” he said. 

His ex-wife and child managed to leave Ukraine and are now in England. 

But Ostalsev has unfortunately lost many close friends to war, including Rafael Agayev, someone he considers his big brother, who taught him all about the pizza business. He was killed in Mariupol in 2022. 

A singular focus on his work defending Ukraine helps him cope, but it’s not easy. 

For Ostalsev, the people who fight alongside him are his brother in arms — something that he said is much stronger than friends or even family.

“Because we’re living together. We’re fighting together. We are losing together. We’re winning together,” he said. 

“When you understand that you can die, when you understand that people from the left and from the right, they will help you, if someone wants to kill you. It’s like — another level.”