Editor’s Note: Ukraine’s Heroes is a Kyiv Post project devoted to soldiers injured in Russia’s war against the nation. Periodically we will tell the stories of these wounded warriors, many of whom need money for treatment, surgeries and prosthesis. Over 1,000 soldiers have been killed and at least 3,400 injured in the war so far.Tank gunner Mykola Tyshyk knocked out three Russian tanks while defending a Ukrainian checkpoint in the Donbas. He was supposed to receive a medal from the state, but three months later he is still waiting. The hero is not disappointed, however, and wants to go back to the front next week, despite the ordeals he suffered there over the summer.
The morning of Independence Day, Aug. 24, did not look good for Tyshyk, who served in the Volyn 51st mechanized brigade. From 4 a.m. Russian soldiers attacked Ukrainian check points with Grad rocket fire.
“I will never forget that Independence Day,” says Junior Sergeant and tank gunner Mykola Tyshyk, 24. This was the day when he took on several Russian tanks. He was trained as a tank driver during his service in the army two years prior, and volunteered for the army in April.
His skills were put to good use later that day.
“At around 7 p.m. I heard the growl of Russian tanks, and so I ordered my crew, loader Andriy Mudrak and driver-mechanic Oleksandr Puhach, to take their positions,” Tyshyk recalls.
Four Russian tanks soon appeared before the check point. The tanks’ guns were turned towards the city of Donetsk and away from the check point, and it confused Tyshyk.
“This maneuver made me hesitate for a while whether to fire or not, because I was not sure if these were enemy tanks,” Tyshyk says.
When the tanks were just 500 meters away, Tyshyk realized it was the enemy moving and decided to fire, but it wasn’t easy. “My T-64 Soviet tank is probably twice my age,” he says. “I knew that it often breaks down, but the only thing I was thinking was how to not let the enemy get through.”
But his very first shot destroyed a brand-new Russian T-72 tank, he recalls. The Russian column paused. “It seemed to me that they were aware how much equipment we have at the checkpoint and were sure that we will not dare to resist,” Tyshyk says.
His next shot hit the enemy’s truck with ammunition, and they started returning fire. “I only heard bullets hitting the armor,” Tyshyk recalls.
The Ukrainian tank started maneuvering in the space between the check point and the enemy, trapping one Russian tank in a bog, then another. One of them was later pulled out by the Ukrainians and delivered to the military unit.
Inside the tank were personal documents of its crew, a uniform and chevrons of the army of the Russian Federation. There was also a Communist red flag inside it.
Tyshyk’s crew got 20 days leave for their courage. He went home to Volyn oblast, and became a local celebrity there, being visited by friends and relatives daily in his mother’s house.
“Even strangers come and greet me,” Tyshyk told the Kyiv Post in September.
Tyshyk was promised a medal for courage from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry and Hr 30,000 on top of that. Three months later, he still has received nothing. “Only one businessman from Sevastopol wanted to thank me and donated Hr 10,000. That’s all,” he says.
Tyshyk’s brigade was disbanded earlier this autumn. Some of the soldiers were sent to other brigades, others are still waiting to return to the front lines. Tyshyk plans to go back next month, but says he still has no winter clothes, and hopes for help from volunteers.
“Boys who are fighting in the east say every warm clothes they have are provided by volunteers only,” he says.
Kyiv Post staff writer Nataliya Trach can be reached at [email protected]
