Holding a vape with his cyborg-like prosthetic arm and hand, Zakhar Biryukov puffs and laughs when asked how he can be so optimistic despite losing both his arms and a leg on a Ukrainian special forces mission.
“Good drugs,” he jokes.
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During his interview with Kyiv Post, and despite the obvious challenges, the former elite soldier is a pillar of positivity: positive about his circumstances, positive about his future, and positive about Ukraine’s fight for freedom.
“It starts with a smile. If you choose to be positive, it leads to good things. If you choose to be negative, it leads only to depression and no future,” Biryukov, 36, says.
“It’s always about choices. Every day, one has to choose how to be rather than be chosen and dictated to by circumstances,” he says.
Biryukov’s circumstances on July 17, 2022, were extreme. It was the day that a mission he was on went wrong. Six months earlier, after having serving in Ukraine’s military from 2015 to 2021, he had instantly returned to special forces service on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
On that summer day, the military helicopter Biryukov was dismounting from was hit by Russian enemy fire. The plastic explosives that Biryukov’s unit was carrying exploded and caused his horrific injuries.
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“I was conscious and can recall trying to put on a tourniquet. That didn’t work and the other guys started applying tourniquets to my arms and my leg, I remember. I didn’t really feel any pain – just a burning sensation,” Biryukov recounts. “I passed out soon after and then woke up six hospitals later. But even then, I was strongly hallucinating and didn’t really know what was reality.”
While Biryukov was unconscious, both his arms and his left leg had been amputated in emergency procedures. He had also lost an eye and sustained facial injuries requiring major reconstructive surgery.
“Eventually, I started to realize that I had lost limbs and that there was now a different life to be led,” he says.
In a Kyiv café together with his wife, Yulia, Biryukov says that “at more than 20” he has stopped counting the number of surgeries he has had following his battlefield injuries, including several in Germany where he was taken for a year’s worth of treatment.
Biryukov, born and raised in a small town in Zhytomyr oblast, ultimately returned to Ukraine and sought help at the renowned Superhumans Center in Lviv, because “we do things faster in Ukraine.” There, he was fitted with his final prostheses – one of which, his right arm, is currently being repaired – and underwent rehabilitation he praises highly.
“It’s very structured there. Every day, you’re set challenges and objectives and you need to meet them. That keeps you focused,” Biryukov says about the training that enables him to control his devices with remaining muscles in his upper arms.
“After you get out, your life is under your own control and that requires a different kind of discipline,” he continues. “I focus on what’s in front of me. I’m finalizing the process of receiving my final prostheses and, afterwards, we can start talking about plans and what the future will be.”
As he decides on what’s next, Biryukov has taken up oil painting with his prosthetic arm – often landscapes that he posts on Instagram as @zakhar_berkut1882 – and he has started a Master’s degree in psychology at a Ukrainian university.
“Even in the army, I was interested in what motivates people. Why some guys find hard situations easy to deal with and why other guys don’t. I’m interested in what can keep us in the fight and what psychological strategies our enemy is using against us,” Biryukov says.
“Fear is a huge factor in life and knowing how to manage fear makes a huge difference to what you can achieve. In the special forces, we used to laugh that war is terrible, but it’s not that bad,” he says.
Listening to the conversation, Yulia offers a perspective.
“Zakhar was highly motivated and optimistic before the injury and that’s exactly who he is today too,” she says. Together, they look after their 10-year-old son, who Biryukov says is “becoming an expert on everything to do with prostheses.”
He says that different people react in different ways when they see him.
“Some come up to me and are curious and ask questions. Others want to thank me for my service,” Biryukov says.
The conversation turns to the war and current affairs. Biryukov is asked how he sees the war progressing. He responds with a quote from Ukraine’s national poet, Taras Shevchenko.
“‘Fight and be victorious.’ Look, there’s no saying how the war will end. We just have to keep fighting it until it does end,” Biryukov says.
Biryukov’s handle on Instagram, Zakhar Berkut, is the name of the lead character in a historically inspired novel by another great Ukrainian writer, Ivan Franko. In it, Zakhar Berkut is the leader of a 13th century Carpathian village who chooses to stand and fight against the invading Mongol horde, despite the long odds.
Some things, it seems, never change – including the sacrifices Ukrainians like Zakhar Biryukov are willing to make for their country.
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