Oleksiy Semenenko, vice president of Dynamo Kyiv, told how he and his colleagues lent a shoulder to the Dnipro-1 battalion company led by Viktor Ozhogin, an honoured journalist of Ukraine.
Recently, the chief sergeant of the Dnipro-1 battalion's company, with the call sign Lutyi, shot down a rare enemy UAV, an Eleron, with small arms. The downed drone is a short-range aerial reconnaissance and surveillance system. The data from the drone will be passed on to the relevant authorities of the Ukrainian Defence Forces. Captain Viktor Ozhogin, 65, is the commander of the company where Lyutyi serves. This story is about the help for the brave captain's unit
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From the first days after Viktor Ozhogin went to the front, his close friend, Oleksiy Semenenko, vice-president of Dynamo Kyiv, asked him to remind him of himself from time to time. "One day, Ozhogin received a message: "Buddy (as Semenenko and Ozhogin have called each other since childhood), I need a car immediately. Help me out." And if Viktor asks for something, it's a really critical situation. Ozhogin is a man who would give his last shirt to someone in need. I immediately began to address this issue," Oleksiy recalls.
Semenenko's family welcomed the situation and agreed to take the money from the "family stocking", which is usually left for a "rainy day". Last year, Oleksiy had already organised a car for Ozhogin's unit at the front and knew the prices. That was the amount he was guided by when looking for a new pick-up truck at Viktor's request. But it turned out that in six months the market had changed so much that there were practically no suitable vehicles left in Europe. Consequently, the cars that could be sent to the frontline had increased in price significantly.
To ease his financial burden, Semenenko turned to friends and colleagues. Oleksiy admits that he was unpleasantly surprised when some of his "friends" refused to help. However, there were many who responded to the request.
"My appeal was supported by representatives of the Champion project Maksym Rozenko and Dmytro Kopiy, editor-in-chief of Sportarena Serhii Dryha, well-known journalist Yurii Korzachenko, and loyal sports fans Serhii Kupenko and Serhii Skryliov," says Semenenko. - The initiative was also joined by RBC-Ukraine CEO Yosyp Pintus, 77-year-old Dynamo Kyiv fan Yosyp Tartakovsky, who has been living in New York since the 1990s, and football philanthropist Volodymyr Lyashchenko. One thread at a time - and sometimes the threads were quite long - and this financial burden almost ceased to be a burden."
After raising the required amount, Semenenko spent days and nights looking for a car that would fit his budget. At midnight, he saw an advert on a car sales website and met with the sellers at eight in the morning. An hour later, the car was parked in the car park near the stadium and office of the Dynamo football club. Two days later, the car went to the front. Ozhogin's eldest daughter Anna and her friend Viacheslav helped with this, buying muddy tyres for the car and driving it to a frontline town in our country.
Football training
"Many people wonder how it is possible to withstand such physical and mental stress at the age of 65. Ozhogin and I are the same age. That's why I can say yes - it's impossible to endure. At least, I wouldn't have been able to stand it. Although Viktor and I have been living roughly the same lifestyle since we were young. Football comes first. Ozhohin still plays, even during the war. When they were at the training ground near Dnipro, he played football all the time. And before the war, Viktor used to run around in Dnipro every weekend with a group of veterans led by legendary Dnipro players Vasyl Liabyk and Oleksandr Rykun. Perhaps this football training is helping him now at the front. Well, and the strength of spirit that my friend has, which is simply unsurpassed," says Dynamo's vice president.
Refusal to take a bribe
Throughout his life, Ozhogin has never been one to cave in to any difficulties or obstacles. In 2009, Viktor reached the top of his professional career, becoming the general director of the Dnipro Regional State Broadcasting Company. At that time, he received a bribe from Yanukovych and a request to air a certain film with compromising material against one of his competitors.
As Semenenko recalls, Ozhogin sent them "in his usual style". The very next day after Yanukovych became president, Viktor found himself on the street. But despite everything, the former TV journalist and football commentator did not lose heart - after losing his job, he started taxiing, earning money to support his family.
Driving a tank to Luhansk
In early December 2013, Semenenko received a call on his phone: "Mate, hi! I'm in Kyiv". The caller was Ozhohin, who had come to Maidan. Until the protests ended, Viktor was in the capital, where he believed he was most needed.
After the Maidan, the war broke out and Ozhogin was among the first to go to the front to defend Ukraine. He once told Oleksiy: "Mate, I have a dream - to drive a tank into Luhansk as a liberator and drive out all the racist and pro-Russian filth that is there." Luhansk, like Semenenko, is Ozhogin's hometown.
In addition to Semenenko, Ozhogin has three other childhood friends. Unfortunately, they fell victim to racist propaganda and became enemies of Ukraine. However, one of these friends has been taking care of the grave of his father Viktor, a World War II veteran, since 2014, periodically sending photos with captions: "How would your father feel about what you are doing?" and other propaganda narratives.
How to become 10 years younger
Just a few days after 24 February, 64-year-old Ozhohin went to the military enlistment office. But he was refused, saying that elderly people were not needed at the front. Then Viktor resorted to a little trick, changing his year of birth from 1958 to 1968 on his military ID card. Only then was he enlisted in the National Guard of Ukraine as a senior lieutenant and deputy company commander. Today, Ozhohin is a captain and company commander of the Dnipro-1 battalion.
In September, Viktor was seriously wounded in the fighting near Lyman. His comrades-in-arms carried him about six kilometres to a small town, where they provided first aid and then three more to get him to safety. After that, Ozhohin was sent to Dnipro for surgery and treatment. Semenenko recalls how a little while later they were sitting on a park bench and in the middle of the conversation, Oleksiy very carefully tried to ask if the honoured veteran was planning to return to the front.
"It was very difficult for me to find the right words. I tried to say that Viktor gave everything and even more to his homeland. That is, maybe he should stay at home. He immediately understood what I was talking about. One look at him made everything clear. But he just said that his guys were there and he couldn't leave them, he was a commander. I had nothing to say to that," Semenenko admits.
40 days in hell
Upon returning to the front, Viktor immediately found himself in hell. His burns were at zero for almost 40 days without a break, without the possibility of rotation or going to the base to catch his breath. It was good that he had a connection, so Viktor sent messages to his "friend" and sometimes even made phone calls. In addition to the fierce fighting, the temperature was +10 during the day and 14 degrees below zero at night. And this was in the trench, where the soldiers had to sleep - if they could - and live in such conditions. How can someone at the age of 65 endure such horrors? This is a rhetorical question. But the answer is "it is possible", and we need to point to the hero Viktor Ozhogin.
For more than a year, the Dnipro-1 battalion, in which Viktor Ozhogin serves, has been through almost the entire Donbass. And there is very little left to do to make his cherished dream come true, as Ozhogin himself says, to liberate his native Luhansk. Oleksiy and his "friend" are in constant contact. "Sometimes, to be honest, I receive messages that make me want to close myself off so that no one can see or hear me and let my emotions flow, as I get incredibly hard news from my friend at the front. And how do you personally endure all this?" Semenenko asks another rhetorical question.
One of Ozhogin's first battles against an entire company of Kadyrov's men in Rubizhne lasted for nine hours straight. The small Ukrainian unit headed by Viktor consisted of 20 people. The Kadyrovites were about 120 - six times more! Ozhogin was next to the machine gunner, a young guy. The guy's heart gave out from hours of stress and he had a stroke. Viktor had to continue the battle alone.
Viktor has two daughters, Anna, the eldest, and Karina, the youngest. Anna can be called a heroine, just like her father. From the first days of the war, she has been volunteering, raising money, and helping her father's unit and other soldiers in every way possible. Semenenko is sure that his younger daughter is no less brave: "Ozhogin sometimes sends me photos of 11-year-old Karina. How she looks at her father, how she loves him, how she waits for him - there are no words to describe it. It is simply impossible to look at those photos without crying."
Vladislava Rozenko
