‘We Just Need to Free Our Country’

A genocide of Ukrainians — how is it possible in modern times? The sun is shining, birds are singing, people are living and minding their own business, and at the same time, people are getting killed. There is so much pain, and there are so many stories. Some people stayed, some left, somebody gets wounded, somebody gets captured, thousands are murdered and countless more will be. The whole nation is being terrorized by its neighbor. I’m afraid that war stories are becoming routine and that the world is becoming numb to daily tragedy. But as long as people suffer, there are stories to tell.

This is the story of Yuriy Sapronov, with whom I have mutual friends. I met him once when he was in the U.S. and recently reached out to him. What follows is what he told me (translated from Russian, and edited for length and clarity):

I was born in a military family in Kaliningrad. I am ethnically Russian, but I feel 100 percent Ukrainian. When my father went into the reserves, he chose Kharkiv as our home city. Why Kharkiv, you ask? Because it was the city with the third-largest number of colleges, after Moscow and St. Petersburg, in the former Soviet Union. I majored in chemistry at Kharkiv University and then taught that subject there. I got married and had two daughters. The ’90s were hard times. We lived in a dormitory and, to meet basic needs, I found work unloading freight from railway cars. I formed construction crews and registered my first company in 1991. I was faced with the hard choice of leaving my teaching job and going into business.

In the following years I became a very successful businessman and felt very lucky that I made so much money. It felt right to start helping those less fortunate than myself, so I formed a charity. We published books and distributed them to Ukrainian libraries. My family sponsored surgeries for 1,100 kids with congenital heart diseases, gave money to modernize chemistry labs and auditoriums at my alma mater, sponsored scholarships for talented chemistry students over a period of 17 years, and ran programs for the elderly. I collected 109 rare-book editions of Taras Shevchenko [the great 19th-century Ukrainian poet and champion of independence], which I donated to the Shevchenko Memorial Museum in Kaniv.

We also established tennis and golf schools and built the Superior Golf & Spa Resort. I have sponsored many athletes, but the biggest star was Elina Svitolina, who became the third-ranked tennis player in the world. She was my biggest source of pride. I discovered her and started sponsoring her in 2007, and believed in her when no one else did.

Our country was experiencing exciting times. There were many things happening, too many to count. We were happily building our new nation. And then came the war . . .

On February 24 we were home and were wakened at five in the morning by a loud explosion. I went to the roof of my house and saw the glow of fire in the direction of the airport. It was unbelievable that the Russians were bombing the city. “We should have listened to American intelligence,” I said to myself.

I couldn’t leave Kharkiv. People know me. I’m a good manager — my life has proved it. I thought that I must help people — civilians and the military alike. I had to give them all the material and mental support that I can. This is my city, my home!

For the first three months, we had four families living with us in our house — women, children, and the elderly. Starting on February 27, we gave shelter to people in the basement of my hotel. It started with 100, and now we have around 50 in our care. My wife, Irene, learned how to cook 15-liter pots of borscht. It took me two months to learn that if there is a swishing sound, you have two to four seconds: There is no running; you just have to dive face down where you stand. We learned many things. On April 22 a rocket hit my neighbor’s house, and the roof was set on fire. Before firefighters arrived we put the fire out with four fire extinguishers. That evening my wife told me, “I jumped and then covered my head with my hands. It felt like something was falling on me. And I thought it was probably not the pieces of the rocket, because I didn’t feel the pain.” They were the remnants of the neighbor’s roof.

Over six months, there were only eight days when Kharkiv wasn’t under attack. In the beginning, there were many problems. For ten days, the city was without bread, and we went scavenging for it with three cars, driving from bakery to bakery. We then distributed the bread in the subway and in hospitals where people were hiding from the bombings. We also went looking for medicine to distribute. Then, we organized food deliveries from the western parts of the country and Europe.

Today, 90 percent of our help goes to support the military that defends our city, composed of almost 3,000 soldiers and officers. The support includes drones, night-vision goggles, thermal-imaging devices, body armor, and helmets; we also provide first aid, sleeping bags, energy drinks, gloves, backpacks, and insect repellent. There are more than 100 different items. I traveled all over the world and visited more than 70 countries, but now I have traveled to the front line. I asked my military friends to take me there and show me around. It was very hard just to walk in full gear. I was looking for ways I could improve the military’s work, ways to help them and with what materials. Just recently I received a government medal for merit, and it makes me very proud and embarrassed at the same time, because the guys who fight on the front line are heroes, unlike myself. I appreciate the honor, but those guys are important, and I’m just trying to help them.

PHOTOS: Russia-Ukraine Conflict

I think after the Maidan Revolution in 2014, Putin realized with horror that Ukraine is truly a free nation and people will never submit to his dictatorship. It is hard to believe that he was able to brainwash 140 million people in his country! The lack of a free press and the stream of lies from official channels influenced public opinion across the whole country. I strongly believe that Russian citizens are silent accomplices to the crimes of their army. When this is over they will say that they didn’t know, were afraid, or didn’t vote for Putin, as this has already happened in recent history after another war.

Putin’s Russia is a danger to freedom and democracy not just in Ukraine, but to the whole world. He dreamed of himself as an emperor, a czar like Peter the Great. The difference between the two is that Peter the Great “cut a window to Europe,” and Putin cemented over it. He cemented over it for decades, generations.

Today, we are all working for victory in this war. We want to live in a free democratic country like the United States. We are fighting for simple human values and for the right to live in a civilized society. We have many problems that require reforms. We have corruption, and our judicial system is far from perfect. But we are learning. We are deeply grateful for the help we are receiving from our friends all over the world, especially from the U.S. We need to clear the occupiers from our land, and we need heavy weapons to do so. Please give us your offensive weapons, as they are the best in the world. We don’t need any Russian land. We are Ukrainians, and we just need to free our country.