In Kyiv, Yuriy Matsarsky’s volunteer platoon includes a rich businessman, an I.T. whiz, two girls in their early 20s and a Ukrainian playwright. Matsarsky himself is a former journalist who left his job as a reporter to fight for his country. When Russia invaded, he took a black marker and colored over the white letters reading “press” on his helmet, turning it into a war helmet.
Matsarsky joined Boston Public Radio from Kyiv Wednesday to talk about the state of the invasion on the ground in Ukraine and what he would like to see from Western powers in support of his country.
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“I'm waking up with a gun and I'm getting to bed with a gun, it's always with me, and I have ammos in all my pockets,” he said. “All the people all around me are also armed. We are preparing.”
Around two weeks ago, Matsarsky made the decision to join the Territorial Defense Forces, which has been training civilian volunteers.
“I was woken up by the sound of the blasts and by the fire in the skies, and it was, this first day was really terrible for me,” Matsarsky said, recalling the start of the invasion. “I think it was my baddest day in my whole life.”
Now, he spends his days taking foreign journalists around the city and preparing to defend military positions.
In his platoon, Matsarsky, 41, said they try not to talk about the invasion, instead imagining the movies they’ll watch and what they’ll get to eat and drink after victory. He has a daughter about to turn 17 who is currently staying elsewhere in Europe. The Russian army destroyed her former school, along with his native city of Kharkiv where his parents lived before evacuating.
“We spent more than a week in a flat without electricity, without water, without heating in it, and we managed to leave Kharkiv,” he said. “There is not such a feeling like a safe place, a completely safe place in Ukraine.”
For Ukrainians, he says their country has quickly become unrecognizable.
“We are living in completely different country and we are living in [a] completely different war,” he said. “I think [it will] never be the same again.”
Matsarsky emphasized that Russia is not focusing just on Ukrainian fighters, but attacking civilians as well. Russian forces were accused Wednesday of bombing a maternity hospital in Mariupol.
“These people are old women, these people are old men, these people are kids, and we're parents, and we are dying because Russia wants them to die,” he said. “The only reason for this war is they want us to die.
“What do we think we should do with people like this who are killing us?” Matsarsky asked. “We have only choice to defeat them and to bury them in our ground.”
Matsarsky called on Western countries to intervene more strongly, advocating for a no-fly zone to protect civilians. He also asked foreigners protest in their own countries.
“You don't need even to take arms,” he said. “You only need to take the street and to demand from your statesmen, to demand from your governments, to protect Ukrainian civilians.”
Fighting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has brought back Matsarsky’s memories of learning about Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in school.
“Sooner or later, you will face him and his sword,” Matsarsky warned of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “It’s better for you to have Ukraine as a stronger ally on your side. ... We need to stay together because this war — it's not only a war against Ukraine, it's a war against civilization.”
Yuriy Matsarsky is a former Ukrainian journalist who took up arms when Russia invaded. He is currently based in Kyiv.
