Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was less than a week old when Maksym Horobets (30) was tasked with blowing up a bridge in the Zaporizhzhia region.
He was a regular in the Ukrainian army, a captain in an engineer and demining company, when on March 3rd this year his unit prevented the Russians from seizing the bridge.
“There was a breakthrough of three BMP-3 (Russian infantry fighting vehicles). We stood next to the special forces of Russia. The enemy attack was repulsed, and when the attack was repelled, the enemy artillery fire began,” he said.
He realised the wires connecting the explosives with the detonator for destroying the bridge was damaged and he went to look for where the connection had been severed.
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In the course of trying to find the severed connection, a shell exploded near Mr Horobets. The right side of his face took the full brunt of the blast and he lost an eye.
He was taken to a Ukrainian field hospital, but when his wounds became infected he was airlifted to Ireland along with four other Ukrainian soldiers for treatment in June of this year.
He has been in Beaumont Hospital since receiving treatment for facial reconstruction surgery. Next month he will undergo surgery to reconstruct his nose.
He pulls out his mobile phone and shows pictures of his life before the war, of a smiling and proud soldier with his comrades. Six of them have now died, he says, in the war.
He is grateful for the medical attention he is getting in Ireland and hopes to return to Ukraine when it is all over.
Like many of those who attended the Ukraine festival in Howth Castle on Saturday afternoon, he is now hopeful of a Ukrainian victory.
“The war is getting better for the Ukrainian side. The Russians are running away from us. We have stronger lads,” he said.
The event was organised by promoter Nick Levchenko who brought Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy to Ireland in 2017 when he was still an actor and comedian and not a politician.
Mr Zelenskiy’s estranged wife in the hit Ukrainian drama Servant of the People, Olena Kravets, was at Howth Castle on Saturday to warm up the crowd.
The event, which was attended by 2,000 people, included well-known Irish singers and musicians Leslie Dowdall, Maria Butterly, Eleanor McEvoy, Eleanor Shanley and John Feeley along with Ukrainian performers. McEvoy played the Ukrainian national anthem on a fiddle.
Mr Levchenko said the retreat of Russia from the Kharkiv region and the slow encirclement of the country’s troops outside Kherson in recent days is telling.
It vindicates the belief Ukrainians had from the beginning, despite being written off by many international observers, that the Russians could be defeated, he believes.
“You have to feel our motivation. We knew from day one we will beat them. This is Ukrainian land naturally and morally. Russians are a slave people. They don’t think for themselves.”
Ruslin Mochskyy, a Ukrainian living in Ireland for the last 20 years, said those who have come since the start of the war have settled in well. “They have to be happy, they have no choice,” he said.
“From talking to people, I think 70 to 80 per cent of them will go back when the war ends. Some of those who live in western Ukraine have already gone back. I’m 100 per cent certain Ukraine will win the war.”
Olena Yakovlieva and her daughter Svitorada (12) dressed for the occasion in the traditional Ukrainian vyshyvanka dresses and vinok (flower crown). They moved to Ireland shortly after the war started and are living with a family in Mountmellick in Co Laois.
“Ireland is a very nice country. People are helpful and friendly. We have a very nice Ukrainian family and I’m happy. When we go to Ukrainian events we can relax,” she said.
Currently, their home city of Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, is the subject of heavy fighting between proxy Russian fighters attached to the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Ukraine.
“I believe Ukraine is winning the war now and all Ukrainian people believe it. We love Ukraine and we want to stay an independent country,” she said.
