With a youthful face and blond hair, Oleksandr “Teren” Budko is the attraction of the day at the Ukrainian Cultural Institute in Paris.

That evening, in front of a large audience, the 27-year-old former soldier presented in France "The Story of a Stubborn Man", an autobiography dotted with memories from the front and retracing his journey from civilian life to that of a soldier. then a veteran bruised by combat.

Oleksandr Budko began writing in October 2022, just two months after losing both his legs to shell fire during the counter-offensive by Ukrainian armed forces to retake the city of Kharkiv.

“It was on the front line that I found inspiration for my writings,” he confides.

Before his injury, he was already publishing short texts accompanied by photos of himself and his comrades in combat gear, as they worked to repel the Russian enemy.

Dressed in a quilted blue shirt and shorts revealing his prosthetics, Oleksandr Budko seems as comfortable as a comedian in front of a crowd who has come to applaud him.

“There is no truth in the leg,” he jokes, a reference to a Ukrainian proverb that says a tired person is incapable of thinking straight and revealing the truth.

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War hero

Because Oleksandr “Teren” Budko wanted to get as close as possible to the truth of war, that of the voices of his comrades, the images and sounds.

But on the Eastern Front, it's impossible to write.

The young man explains that with each attempt, anxiety attacks lasting several months overwhelmed him, preventing him from moving forward.

It was ultimately thousands of kilometers from his native country that he found the strength to tell his experience.

After losing both his legs, the former soldier traveled to Florida in the United States to be fitted with two sports prostheses in preparation for participation in the Invictus Games, a multi-sport competition for wounded and injured soldiers and war veterans. people with disabilities.

See also Ukraine: in the Donbass, a decade of war

“I was there, in the sun, I swam in the sea in Miami, I ate at McDonald's – and it gave me the perfect circumstances to write this book,” he explains.

During the day, he devotes himself to rehabilitation exercises but in the evening he works on his writings.

As if diving into the crystal clear waters of the Atlantic coast, he immerses himself in his war memories.

“Some of the people I talked about in the book died, and that’s why it was so difficult to write the text,” says Oleksandr Budko.

"Fortunately, many of the people in the book survived, including my comrade Artem," he adds, pointing to a young man in a wheelchair sitting in the front row. The audience, made up largely of Ukrainians, then applauded wildly to thank the two young men for their sacrifice. 

“The life of a soldier is not limited to combat”

Oleksandr Budko agreed to an interview the next day to talk about his memories and what prompted him to enlist in the army.

After a visit to the Carnavalet museum in Paris and its exhibitions devoted to the French Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, the young man arranged to meet in a kebab restaurant on rue des Rosiers, a street lively Marais district.

He is accompanied by his publisher and a group of young Ukrainians who, judging by their excitement, seem to be visiting the French capital for the first time.

A little apart from the group, Oleksandr Budko suddenly seems less like an actor in front of his audience than like a wise old man.

“I wrote this book for civilians and for people who have never seen war, so that they can understand what is happening on the front lines,” he explains. 

Through his interpreter, he indicates that he was in Kiev when the war broke out on February 24, 2022. "I signed up as a volunteer because I wanted to defend my country against the enemy and help him to gain independence.

Read alsoTwo years after the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian army reviews its strategy

Although he had never held a weapon in his life, he joined the 49th Infantry Battalion of the Carpathian Sich, a battalion of the Ukrainian Ground Forces established in May 2022. After receiving training and participating in the defense of the capital, it is deployed in the north-east of Ukraine, near Izioum.

Most of the members of his battalion were volunteers who accepted the consequences of their choice, judges the former soldier.

“Of course, there was Bakhmout and Avdiivka (two besieged towns that experienced months of bloody fighting), but there is more to the life of a soldier than fighting.”

Oleksandr Budko se souvient notamment de cet instant où il a mangé une tranche de foie gras au petit-déjeuner : "Pour moi, c'était la preuve que j'étais encore en vie", explique-t-il. Bien qu'ils aient été entraînés à devenir des machines à tuer, lui et ses frères d'armes ont tenté de poursuivre un semblant de vie civile, comme pour s'accrocher à leur humanité. Sur le front, ils continuent à partager des repas traditionnels comme le bortsch, une soupe de betteraves rouges et de viande de bœuf mijotée. Ils recueillent également des chiens et des chats abandonnés ou évacuent des personnes âgées des zones devenues trop dangereuses.

Un optimisme à toute épreuve

Depuis les tranchées, les soldats suivent les discours du président ukrainien Volodymyr Zelensky et les informations sur le soutien militaire de l'étranger. "Nous nous intéressions à la manière dont la guerre allait se terminer, mais bien sûr, la situation concernant les livraisons d'armes était également importante, car sans armes, il serait impossible de mettre fin à la guerre. Cependant, malgré les nombreuses armes fournies, cela n'a jamais été suffisant", estime Oleksandr Budko.

L'écriture du livre lui a aussi permis de revivre paradoxalement certains moments de "l'une des meilleures périodes de ma vie". L'aventure, la camaraderie et les moments de paix, comme lorsqu'il s'allongeait sur le sol avec un livre, semblent avoir laissé à Oleksandr Budko un sentiment de nostalgie dépourvu de toute amertume.

Mais aujourd'hui, il préfère ne pas parler du jour où un tir d'artillerie l'a gravement blessé, lui faisant perdre ses deux jambes : "Il n'y a pas de traumatisme, mais j'ai raconté l'histoire trop souvent". Il dit avoir toujours été doté d'un optimisme à toute épreuve. Ce qui a changé après la blessure, c'est qu'il est "devenu plus courageux et plus ouvert aux autres".

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En repensant à sa période de service, le jeune homme se rappelle avoir découvert une petite figurine de kobzar [un barde itinérant ukrainien] en creusant des tranchées dans la région de Kharkiv. Pour lui, cette figurine a confirmé que ces terres étaient bien ukrainiennes, car les kobzars n'ont jamais existé en Russie. Elle l'a également convaincu de son rôle dans la défense de l'intégrité territoriale du pays.

As Ukraine enters its third year of war against the Russian invasion, Oleksandr Budko compares this conflict to a struggle between "David and Goliath" and then warns: "The less Ukraine is supported, the more the enemy closer to other European countries.

With his book, he intends today to "contribute to Western populations' understanding of the war" and encourage them to support his country "so that they can help obtain a Ukrainian victory as quickly as possible."

Article translated from English by Grégoire Sauvage, the original can be found

here

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