Mavka: When and how did you join the Ukrainian Armed Forces during the Russian-Ukrainian war of 2014-…?
Oleh: On February 13, 2015.
I graduated from the military department at the Military Institute of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, so I have been a reserve officer of the Armed Forces of Ukraine since 2006.
The first time I got a call from the TCC on my home phone and was asked to clarify my data. I clarified it so much that I passed the medical commission and was mobilized. After two retraining courses (work with personnel, military journalism), I was assigned to the 72nd Separate Mechanized Brigade (now named after the Black Cossacks).
Mavka: Did you have any previous combat experience?
Oleh: Only a military degree, which is not combat experience.
Mavka: If it’s not a secret, where did you serve, how long, and as what?
Oleh: Seven months in the 72nd Brigade. I served in Volnovakha and Bila Tserkva. The position was formally called “press officer,” but in reality I was doing bureaucracy: I drew up protocols for drunken soldiers, organized the receipt of combatant certificates for the entire brigade.
In 2015, I was not in the areas of intense fighting. Volnovakha was a quiet rear city, and the only trip to the village of Olhynka went without any shelling.
Mavka: Did you have to adapt to peaceful life after demobilization?
Oleh: No. I was more concerned about civilian difficulties – the “crisis of thirty”, the question of how to find a better job and burnout as an altruistic civic activist 🙂
Mavka: Please tell us about your military prose.
Oleh: I wrote memoirs about several periods of my life.
About eco-activism (they were published in 2022 at the expense of the Ukrainian Nature Conservation Group (UNCG) in the collection Who Were You When You Were Young? Volume 2).
Next, about the Maidan of 2013-2014 and participation in the ATO in 2015 (still unpublished).
And finally, about the “full-scale” – excerpts will be published in January 2025 in the almanac of the Bilka publishing house. These are sketches about the atmosphere of the war – the Mayorsk checkpoint, Toretsk, Pavlivka, Vuhledar, towns and villages that were deserted before our eyes and became like Pripyat.
There are plans to publish it in book format, but it is too early to announce them. First of all, I am concerned that I have seen the life of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the most psychologically unpleasant sides as a moral and psychological support officer, and if I write the “whole truth”, it will play into the hands of the occupiers. And we want to win the information war.
Mavka: Please tell us about your participation in the reservists’ training camp.
Oleh: Once, in 2016, the TCC called and said that they might be there, but then they didn’t call, so there was no such meeting for me.
Mavka: Please tell us about your participation in the Spring on Granite campaign.
Oleh: The participants of the Spring on Granite action in 2020 demanded not to surrender the territories of Donbas and announced an indefinite picket right on the steps of the Presidential Office. They were on duty there, sleeping in sleeping bags, and were constantly reprimanded by the police. (The story has a sense of humor, because at that time Zelenskyi had a reputation as a President who crossed “red lines” for the Russians.) The campaign during the “coronavirus” quarantine was organized by veterans – without parties, for their own money. As a result, the activists held poetry readings and a theater performance and completed their duties in late spring. After the end of the play “Prison Song”, the police drew up an administrative report against one of the actors based on the words of Olena Gerasymiuk.
“I took pictures of it and wrote two reports about ‘Spring…’ two reports.
Unfortunately, a fellow Roman Barvinok with the call sign “Skrypal”, a participant in the action, died at the front in 2022.
The two participants became known as artists who write about the Russian-Ukrainian war: Олена Герасим’юк, військовослужбовці Ярина Чорногуз і Василь Духновський.
Mavka: When and how did you join the Armed Forces during the full-scale invasion?
Oleh: As a reservist of the first-stage operational reserve, I was obliged to report to my brigade, which I did. In the morning of February 24, 2022, I caught a taxi at Teremky-1, arrived in Bila Tserkva, mobilized, and in the evening I was already at a combat position in the village of Zorya, Brovary district.
And speaking of timing, in civilian life I’m going to stick to vegetarianism.
I gave a comment to the NGO Every Animal, where I call on the Ministry of Defense to introduce vegan rations. But I do not consider myself morally fit to be a spokesperson for this movement.
portrait and nude photos at the Mala Opera, the first exhibition on “military” topics was a sharp contrast.
This was followed by an exhibition at the Kyiv Youth Library in January 2023, followed by its second part in November 2023.
In 2024, I opened a photo exhibition “Lace of Fate” at the Youth Library (again with peaceful portraits and the Greek goddesses of fate, Moira).
Mavka: Your Moirae don’t seem civilized to me.
Oleh: They are harsh and weave fate in times of post-apocalypse, for sure. ))
And at the Cinema House, I opened an exhibition “Dreams of Peace” (based on the contrast between photo reports from war zones and women’s portraits). The selection also included nudes, which is not a comic relief to exhibit in Molodizhka. ))
All this time, he was also participating in collective photo exhibitions in Kyiv, one of which can still be seen in the Artistic Crossing on Khreshchatyk near the Central Department Store.
Finally, on December 31, 2023, I was accepted into the National Union of Photographers of Ukraine.
Mavka: Congratulations! And please tell us about the performances of your band AndrosLand during the full-scale invasion.
Oleh: In general, I started recording my music in the summer of 2011, when the idea of AndrosLand was actually born. In 2024, I reassembled the band (the previous concert with the full band was in 2017, and in 2019 and 2021 we performed as a duo).
The acoustic concert at the Bulgakov Museum in April 2024 in favor of the 13th OPCW was a success, we raised UAH 7000 in donations, and you can see the full house in the photo report.
So, I decided to “up the ante” and hold the event in a commercial space.
War Diaries Session is a charity concert at the Mezzanine art space in Podil in September 2024.
I collected money from ticket sales for the benefit of the 13th Brigade, where I serve (but most of the profit, unfortunately, went to organizational expenses). The concert featured Moon Echoes (indie rock), Mnishek (alternative folk rock), and AndrosLand (darkwave, new age).
Mavka: Please tell us about your participation in streams during the full-scale invasion.
Oleh: I participated in an online interview for French volunteer radio in April 2023. It was initiated by Svitlana Laskina, a former employee of the Punch Library in Kyiv. It was followed by two streams at the Kyiv Youth Library in April and October 2024 (I officially work there in civilian life, by the way).
For the National Museum of the Revolution of Dignity, I recorded my greeting and theses of my report at the conference right from the “second line” in the Vuhledar area, with volunteer Yulia Bartle as the videographer.
And the most memorable was my video commentary for the TV channel about the opening of the photo exhibition in Molodizhna, also from the “second line”, with the sounds of our art in the background.
Mavka: Please tell us about your journalistic activities during the full-scale invasion.
Oleh: At the beginning of the “full-scale” I made two programmatic articles for the site Nihilist.
Unfortunately, I also had to write in the genre of obituaries – memories of Roman Ratushnyi, Max Naumenko and Yura Lebedev (all three died at the front).
In addition to The Nihilist, my journalistic activities include writing memoirs for the table (except for the Squirrels almanac) and photo reports that I exhibit at exhibitions. Perhaps I will finally publish the photos of Vuhledar and the Mayorsk checkpoint in public, because those firing positions are no longer there-the city and the railway station are occupied.
Mavka: You know, all this hurts, but the cities I’ve been to hurt more. In my interview for Nihilist I told you at the end about what I was doing in Vuhledar in late August 2014…
But we are fighting to live and get everything back. So please tell us about your current military needs.
Oleh: Currently, I am raising 21 thousand UAH to repair our volunteer car, a Volkswagen T4, and to maintain it.
Mavka: Thank you for your protection!
