Dymetro Melnyk is an athlete as well as a Ukrainian warrior. He is one of around 3,000 athletes currently serving in the Ukrainian Army. More than 470 have been killed in action fighting the Russians. (Source: Ukrainian Sports Ministry)
Melnyk is a drone operator in the Northeast near Kharkiv where there is heavy fighting. He has one leg shorter than the other because of a 6-story fall that left him seriously disabled at age 22. Now 44, he participates on the Ukrainian men’s sit-down volleyball team. Melnyk was granted leave from the front to lead his team in the recently-held Paralympic Games in Paris and has now returned to the war front in Eastern Ukraine.
When the war broke out Melnyk tried to enlist but the Army rejected him because of his leg and pelvic injuries. That did not deter him. He spent his own money to learn to be a drone operator. The Army eventually accepted him.
“A lot of people have a healthy body, but they do not have enough spirit or strength to fight,” said his commander, Lt. Georgia Volkov.
That spirit of service and patriotism is a key factor in the success of Ukraine, locked in its David and Goliath fight against Putin and the larger Russian military.
The Ukrainian team has for the last three decades fared well in the Paralympics. Their Paralympic team made its debut in 1996 in Atlanta fielding 30 athletes. Vastl Lishchynskyy won Ukraine’s first Paralympic gold medal there in the shot put.
Twenty-eight years later in Paris, Ukrainian athletes won 82 medals. The medals–22 gold, 28 silver, and 31 bronze were enough to secure seventh place finish in the medal count in a field that included athletes from 170 countries competing in 22 different paralympic sports. Just imagine having the mental toughness to focus on your sport even as your country, family and friends are under siege.
Ukraine’s athletic prowess extends to the professional sports world. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko is also the world heavyweight boxing champion and holds a doctoral degree from Kyiv University in Physical Science. Not surprisingly, Ukriane has had a significant number of boxers win Olympic medals.
The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross country skiing and rifle sports shooting. Skiing and shooting skills are necessary as this is a race with points added or subtracted from skiing times. The shooting part of this sport requires controlled breathing that facilitates shooting accuracy. In the 2022 Beijing winter Paralympics on the final day of the para- biathlon, Ukraine won three of the six gold medals that were up for grabs.
In the professional tennis world Ukrainian women have reached new heights and have been strong supporters of their country at war with Russia. Elena Svitslova and three other Ukrainian women are ranked in the top 50 in the world. Ukrainian Lyudmyla Kichenok together with Latvian Jelena Ostapenko recently won the women’s double crown at the U.S. Open. They all have been outspoken and loyal to Ukraine and critical of Putin and Russia.
In a report last year on the BBC Sophie Williams told of six Ukrainian athletes who lost their lives defending their country.
One of the six was Dmytro Serbin, who played in the Ukrainian American Football league for the Kyiv Capitals. He was the fastest player in the league, according to others. He was a medical doctor who was killed evacuating wounded civilians. He gave up his place in the evacuating car for others who were wounded. His friend and team quarterback Maxime Çherepivskiy said of his teammate: “He was a cool athlete and a man with a big heart. He was a great doctor and a good friend—a leader on the field and in life.”
It is not unusual to come across Ukrainians with similar attitudes of love for their country and their willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice to preserve their freedoms and dignity.
In my visit to Ukraine in March of 2023, I spoke to a class of psychology students at Ukrainian Catholic University. The class was about twenty students, all women except for two men. In there was a large monitor for us and the class to interact with a female student/army warrior who was part of the class but also called to duty. We could see her and she us on her iPhone. She was in war-torn Bahkmut, dressed in her battle fatigues loading an artillery shell as we watched her from 634 miles away in Lviv.
At the end of the school day at the university many of the students raise money to buy night goggles, tourniquets, and first aid kits for the frontline troops. The students also work creating camouflage netting to hide Ukrainian military hardware near the battlefields.
The war has catalyzed the Ukrainian Catholic University to reconfigure the university’s strategic plan. Today there is now a Director of Veterans Affairs. The psychology department and Mental Health Institute have increased their training of psychologists and others who are first responders in the war.
Ukraine is not just a military at war. It’s a country at war and that includes a large percent of its citizens whether military or civilian. They are fighting for their lives, their democracy, and their country. Another student, Yana, told me in her English class: “The best people in our country are dying. When we lose our best people, we will be ready to become the best people.”
That Ukrainian spirit and indomitable courage is hard to beat whether on the battlefield, in the classroom, or the competitive athletic arena. It is also why Ukraine has survived centuries of Russian aggression and war crimes in its failed efforts to eliminate Ukraine as a state and as a people.
Ukrainians have long dreamt of freedom. Now they are fighting an heroic battle.
Slava Ukraine!
David Bonior represented Macomb County and Michigan in the House of Representatives from 1977 to 2003. He served as Democratic whip from 1991 to 2002.
