Anatolii has worked as a driver at UKRNAFTA since 2019. In 2022, from the very first days of the full-scale invasion, he volunteered to join the Armed Forces of Ukraine without hesitation.
Since then, he has served as a driver-electrician with the 116th Separate Mechanised Brigade. His service is frontline logistics: delivering food, equipment and essential supplies to his comrades, carrying out evacuations and making constant trips to places where every route can carry a risk.
“Logistics on the front line, under fire, is a lottery,” Anatolii says.
During his service, he has operated in the Kharkiv, Kupiansk, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Zaporizhzhia sectors.
Before every trip, the situation in the sky is checked. But even that does not guarantee safety. “You get a call — and you go. There may be enemy UAVs in the sky and the road may be destroyed, but you cannot plan anything — everything is decided on the spot. And the responsibility for whether you make it there partly rests with you — with how well you have tracked the movement of drones,” he says.
Anatolii has repeatedly found himself in dangerous situations. There were times when his vehicle hit an explosive device, and after one such incident he had to make it out literally on three wheels. During one trip, he was wounded. After two months of treatment and rehabilitation, he returned to the front line.
In such conditions, experience matters — but so does one’s state of mind.
“When there is chaos around you, it is hard. But when the team is calm and organised, it becomes easier for you too; it is calmer to work,” Anatolii says. Sleep, silence and a few hours without tension help him recover more than anything else. “Everyone has their own way. Some choose sport, some take medication, but for me, it is sleep,” he says.
Anatolii emphasises that the people with whom he began his military service in 2022 have become more than fellow soldiers — they have become a team. That bond is formed through shared experience: difficult and dangerous, but also unifying. At the same time, war has its own brutal reality — losses. Even so, the memory of those comrades and the bond between them do not disappear.
Support from comrades, loved ones and colleagues is also vital. UKRNAFTA systematically supports employees who have taken up arms to defend the country, so Anatolii’s unit has received the assistance it needed, while he himself has received financial support for equipment.
This matters not only as practical help. It is also a sense of connection with the team he worked with before his military service — the feeling that he is remembered and that people remain by his side.
“Even in war, you can be happy — I am sure of that. I receive support from my comrades and from people close to me. This support is one of the main pillars. It holds you up when things are hard,” Anatolii says.
For his service, he has received the Golden Cross award and other badges of honour. But he does not place the main emphasis on awards. For him, respect and trust between people matter more.
