You're reading: Red Army veteran lives fine in Lviv among nationalists

LVIV, Ukraine - One would think that Andrii Kulykivskiy, a 90-year-old World War II veteran from Lviv, is in a tough position.

He fought in the ranks of the Soviet Red Army, and yet now he lives amid supporters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, or UPA, whose soldiers fought both Soviet and Nazi forces in the war.

Despite living in a city that has even been hostile to World War II victory celebrations, Kulykivskiy feels comfortable and has friends among the UPA veterans who were once his foes. In his opinion, both armies were fighting aggressors in their own ways.

“I highly appreciate UPA’s participation in World War II,” he says.

Kulykivskiy co-founded the Lviv-based Ukrainian Veterans Association, which unites veterans of both UPA and the Soviet army.

Lviv, like many in western Ukraine, does not embrace its Soviet heritage. The Victory Day celebrations in 2011 and 2013 in Lviv were overshadowed by clashes between police and nationalists who protested against the holiday that is seen as Moscow’s glorification of a totalitarian regime.

But Kulykivskiy merely sees Victory Day as a symbolic holiday of not great importance. “Victory Day is an inappropriate holiday,” he says. “It would be much better just to have a remembrance day for the soldiers who died in all wars.”

Kulykivskiy lives alone in an apartment in the center of Lviv. His wife died 18 months ago. He has no children.

But he is the author of several memoirs that he published at his own expense. And he continues to write. He even learned how to use a computer, opened a Facebook account and uses email.

Kulykivskiy was born in the Canadian city of Winnipeg to a Ukrainian family. From the age of two, Kulykivskiy lived in a village in western Ternopil Oblast.

He was called up to the Red Army in 1944 at the age of 19. In his local battalion he was the only soldier who had been to school.

Kulykivskiy was promoted to division commander. After a minor wound, he was assigned became an assistant to a medical doctor. After the war, Kulykivskiy worked as a psychiatrist for 38 years in Kyiv before retiring and moving to Lviv.

He doesn’t like recalling the battlefield. But he was afraid to shoot. His commander even called him a coward.

But his worst war memory didn’t come from fighting. The worst was seeing his fellow Soviet soldiers raping a teenage girl who ran away from shelling in a suburb of Königsberg in present-day Kaliningrad.

“I was begging them to stop, saying, ‘What are you doing? She is barely breathing!’ But they just told me to ‘stand in line’,” he recalls.

The combined Russian-separatist war against Ukraine now weighs on his mind. He’s been writing letters to Parliament and the president, trying to persuade them to impose martial law. He believes it will help Ukraine win.

It pains him that he cannot contribute more to Ukraine’s victory.

“My heart bleeds that I can’t be more active,” Kulykivskiy says.

Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliana Romanyshyn can be reached at [email protected].