Nearly three years ago, just before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, 23-year-old Ukrainian Army Lieutenant Myroslav Pylypchuk was preparing to become a father. Instead, he found himself facing the invaders on the front lines, where he faced death repeatedly, including a head-on encounter with a Russian tank in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine.
During subsequent fighting in the Kharkiv area, he stepped on a Russian landmine. His left leg was destroyed in the explosion.
Exactly four months later, he was conquering a mountain peak with the help of crutches. Today, he is a father of two young children who lives in the US state of Ohio, where he was given a new organ and a new lease on life.
In an interview with VOA’s Ukrainian Service, Pylypchuk shared the story of his close encounter with a tank, how a tourniquet from an American philanthropist saved his life, and his recovery journey.
‘This tank is already coming straight at me’
In the spring of 2022, Myroslav Pylypchuk found himself face to face with a Russian tank. There was a duel between a 23-year-old man from the western Ukrainian city of Khmelnytsky and an enemy tank captured on video By a Ukrainian drone operator.
“This tank is already coming straight at me, with its guns raised and aiming at me,” he told VOA. “I think to myself: Either I will shoot now, or it will shoot first. I take the first shot, the grenade from the grenade launcher bounces off the ground, flies over the turret and explodes. The tank stopped and fired exactly where I was. But all I found were pieces of shrapnel that flew from these bushes and hit me.
“The tank goes into the ditch, turns its turret, and once again takes aim at the spot where I was standing, as if I had really upset it, as if I had ruined its day. Then it turns the turret and fires again at the spot where I was. The shell fell right where I was, but thank God I had already managed to run about 20 meters away, and the shrapnel from that shell flew past me.”
Just two weeks before Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, Pylypchuk learned he was going to be a father. On 24 February, he packed his belongings and joined his military unit in Kiev, where he was then living and stationed.
A graduate of the Lviv Academy of Ground Forces, Pylypchuk served in the Ukrainian Army in the Donetsk region, commanding a company of 80 soldiers. By May 2022, his unit had recaptured the village of Tsyrkuni in the Kharkiv region from Russian forces.
During just a few months on the front lines, he almost lost his life three times.
“Shrapnel in one case, rockets in another case, then the tank missed,” he recalled.
The gift from an American that saved his life
However, Lieutenant Pylypchuk’s luck ran out during the Kharkiv battle when he stepped on a landmine.
“I was walking at one point, I heard an explosion and fell. “I try to take a step with my left foot and fall again,” he told VOA. “I look at my foot — I was wearing new gear, light colored — and I look at my foot, and it’s already completely red.”
Pylypchuk’s two first aid kits and all of his medical supplies were also destroyed by the landmine explosion. He said it was as if he had been turned into a human sieve – even the scissors used to cut clothes were twisted and scattered in all directions.
However, he still had another tourniquet – a gift that Ron Jackson, an American volunteer who had been traveling to Ukraine for years to help his army, had given him just before the war started.
A tourniquet was placed around Jackson’s chest, saving his life. But Pylypchuk’s upper left leg was completely broken by the landmine explosion.
Medics treating Pylypchuk at the scene loaded him into the trunk of a Soviet-made Niva SUV to take him to a hospital in Kharkiv.
“The Niva lifts up, and I’m thinking, ‘Where should I sit?’, because there were already two people in the car: one was driving, and the other was covering the window, maybe God forbid, they “Some random saboteur group came over and then they threw me in the trunk like a sack of potatoes,” he recalls, smiling.
With every bump in the road, the adrenaline diminished, and the pain got worse:
“I felt like Shrek’s Donkey asking, ‘How much longer?’ When will it get better?’ They drove me around Kharkiv for about half an hour, trying my best to stay alert. As soon as I saw the hospital doors open and the bright light, I closed my eyes. The doctor was surprised by this. That I was conscious till the last moment.”
Doctors struggled for six hours to save Pylypchuk’s life, and he remained unconscious for three days. However, the shrapnel that had entered his body traveled through the ground and trees, causing a blood infection – so severe that his left leg had to be amputated.
Recovery in America
Pylypchuk needed a prosthesis for his leg, but the waiting list in Ukraine was long, so he looked for other options. He called Jackson, the American whose tourniquet had saved his life, who introduced Pylypchuk to Ihor, a Ukrainian immigrant who knew a prosthetist in Ohio.
Thanks to Ihor, who became Pylypchuk’s sponsor during his move to Ohio, the prosthesis was fitted in the US in October 2022. Pylypchuk also received help through individual donations and free consultations from prosthetists. In just two weeks – an incredibly fast recovery – he was walking on his own.
“What drove me was the will to live, because, God didn’t give me a second chance for no reason — He gave me the opportunity to survive,” Pylypchuk told VOA.
More than two years after stepping on the landmine, Pylypchuk is still undergoing rehabilitation and preparing for additional surgeries. Now living temporarily in the US thanks to Uniting for Ukraine Special US government parole program for Ukrainians Fleeing the Russian invasion, he continues to raise money and send essential supplies to his fellow soldiers on the Ukrainian front lines.
Pylypchuk has a two-year-old son, Mark, and a daughter, Evelina, who was born in the United States. He hopes that by the time he makes a full recovery, the war in Ukraine will be over and he, his wife and two children can return home. He wants to make a career in information technology.
Currently, he is focusing on his recovery and enjoying being a father.
“You only have one life, and you have to live it to the fullest, without the fear of not doing something. If you want to do something, you need to do it. And appreciate what you have. Above all – your life,” he said.