\n- Lulu Garcia-Navarro<\/dt>\n
- \n
From The earliest days of the war in Ukraine, we\u2019ve seen the images of everyday Ukrainians signing up to defend their country against the Russian invasion leaving behind the lives they\u2019d been living just days before. Wars can be uniting in that way with citizens coming together against a shared enemy, putting their differences aside. Oleksandr Zhuhan, Sashko for short, was one of those who joined Ukraine\u2019s volunteer forces. He\u2019s gay, and for him, Putin\u2019s Russia held particular terror. Gay people are routinely targeted their, arrested without cause, even tortured. And among the reasons Putin gave for invading Ukraine, he said the country had embraced values, quote, \u201ccontrary to human nature.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Sashko had also experienced homophobia within Ukraine in the years leading up to the war. So when he started talking to my colleague, Courtney Stein in the early days of the fighting, he was facing dual fears a future under Russia, but also how he might be treated by the soldiers he was serving alongside. From \u201cNew York Times Opinion,\u201d this is \u201cFirst Person.\u201d I\u2019m Lulu Garcia-Navarro. Today, Sashko and the fight for his future in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Hi, Courtney. Today is calmer than it was yesterday, but still it\u2019s not safe here. Anyway \u2014<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
When we first started talking, Sashko was too busy to get on the phone.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN We hear bumping sounds like every 15 minutes or every half an hour.<\/p>\n
He was just a couple of days into his enlistment, and these were the early days of the war when Russia was shelling Kyiv. His unit was stationed in what had been a mall there.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN And we are sleeping now next to the window shop. It looks somehow surrealistic because we see that beautiful clothes and we are wearing the same clothes that we came here in.<\/p>\n
So I asked him to send me voice memos whenever he had a free minute. And what most came through was just how disorienting this all was for him.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
I haven\u2019t \u2014 I hadn\u2019t held a gun in my life until the 24th of February. I skipped all the lessons of \u2014<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
In Ukraine, boys learn how to shoot guns in school. But Sashko never wanted any part of that sort of thing. He\u2019d never imagined fighting in a war, even up to the moment he enlisted alongside the partner he calls his husband, though they can\u2019t be legally married.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
We didn\u2019t think that we would be given guns. We thought that we would do something like, I don\u2019t know, cooking or cleaning or carrying heavy things, something like that. My husband is a director, and I am an actor and a director and a playwright. We are very stereotypically gay, if I can put it this way, like we are a gay couple who are vegans and we are very anti, I don\u2019t know, war.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Or at least they had been, then Russia invaded. Sashko and Antonina spent the night of the invasion hiding in their bathroom, weighing whether to enlist.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
For both of us, it was a very difficult decision because we used to avoid places where there are lots of manly men, like stereotypically heterosexual men who want to fight. And we have met violence against gay people before and it was difficult.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
But the day after Russia invaded when it became clear just how serious the situation was, both Sashko and Antonina signed up. They weren\u2019t telling anyone they were together though.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
There was a situation when a man from our unit came up to us and asked, so are you brothers or friends? And since he only gave us like two options, I said friends very quickly. But then I was sorry and I kept thinking to myself, what would have happened if I had said we are husband and husband? What would have changed? I\u2019m not sure.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
In Ukraine, boys learned how to shoot guns in school. But Sashko never wanted any part of that sort of thing he\u2019d never imagined fighting in a war, even up to the moment he enlisted alongside the partner he calls his husband, though they can\u2019t be legally married.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
So I grew up in a small town in the Central Ukraine. When I was born, it was still the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
As a kid, Sashko spoke Russian in school. Then in 1991 when he was seven, Ukraine declared its independence. But it wasn\u2019t a big patriotic moment in Sashko\u2019s memory. What he remembers is the economic collapse that followed.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
People had to survive and they did different things, like some people stole, some people \u2014 I don\u2019t the word for that. They did very bad things to survive and to get some food for their children.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Sashko and his parents lived in an apartment block with a shared courtyard.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
All the kids knew one another from the moment they were born. And I knew that there were some boys that my mom said, you mustn\u2019t be friends with those boys because they smoke and their parents are not a very good family. Some of them smoked cigarettes beginning at the age of five I suppose.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
What?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
Yeah. Yeah. That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Sashko wasn\u2019t that kind of kid though. He was a rule follower.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
I was really very out of touch with the reality I think. I mean, I didn\u2019t know much about sexuality, about homosexuality, or anything like this. I really like to draw, and I drew things like every day. I had albums. Do you do you say album or notebooks?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Notebooks.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
Filled with sketches. Yeah. And I had a secret notebook where I drew all like naked, people naked men. And I was about, I don\u2019t know, 10 or 11 years old. And my mom found it and she said, oh my god, what was that? I was so ashamed. And she said that it was really a bad thing.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
That was the message Sashko got from basically everyone growing up.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
Homosexuality was something that you should be ashamed of. And it was something that people in prison, you know, prisoners used to punish other prisoners. Does it make sense what I\u2019m saying?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
So it wasn\u2019t like that people were actually gay. It was just a punishment.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
Yeah. Yeah. Or whenever you heard the word homosexuality, it was considered some of the world\u2019s biggest threats, you know, like homosexuality atomic war.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
And given that, when he left his hometown and went to Kyiv for college, he stayed in the closet. But in his second year, he fell in love with his roommate who was straight.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
One day I just decided that, oh my god, if he doesn\u2019t love me then I have no more reason to live. I know now that it was very stupid, but I was 16. So I got all the drugs that I had, I mix them with alcohol and I drank them all. And at first, I fainted, but then my friends found me and they called the ambulance.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
He ended up in the hospital. They called his mom to take him home.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
And of course, she started asking questions, and I had to tell her.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
How did she respond?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
She said, it\u2019s OK, I love you. Maybe one day you\u2019ll meet a woman and you\u2019ll have children and I\u2019ll pray for you. Let\u2019s pray together. And I said, oh my god, mom, don\u2019t. Please, I \u2014 and that was like second coming out. I said, I don\u2019t believe in God. I\u2019m an atheist. Yeah. And then some years later, I\u2019m a vegan. And you know, like it was a bingo, gay vegan atheist. No more hope for mom.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Which one was hardest for her, the atheist, the veganism, or the being gay?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
I don\u2019t think that she accepted anything, any of these.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
When he finished college, Sashko stayed in Kyiv. He met some other gay people, but he said it was still too early to call it a community. He started dating, but it didn\u2019t always go well.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
One of them was a criminal, so that was that bad. Yeah. And so I embraced that some people find their partners in life and some people don\u2019t. Some people die lonely. And it stopped scaring me because before that, I thought that it was one of my biggest priorities, you know, to find a partner, to make family, and so on.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Then in 2014, Sashko got a message on a dating site.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
And at that stage, I met Antonina. I looked through his profile and I found out that he was into theater and that he was a refugee from Crimea. And that looked interesting.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Antonina recently began identifying as non-binary and using she and her pronouns. But Sashko still goes back and forth.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
He or she, yeah, I\u2019m still confusing these things. We arranged a meeting. It wasn\u2019t a date. It was a meeting.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
They connected at a big moment in Ukraine, the moment a lot of Ukrainians say was the actual beginning of this war. The Ukrainian president at the time, who Putin supported, had just fled to Russia after months of protests forced him from office. Within days, Russian troops moved in to occupy Crimea. And like a lot of L.G.B.T.Q. people there, Antonina fled and ended up in Kyiv.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
We met on the bridge which is non-existent now. And we spend the night like talking and drinking coffee, talking about children, about theater and all kinds of things. And it was like, I don\u2019t know how many hours. And that\u2019s how we met. I think that talking to him and spending evenings and nights talking about what\u2019s right and what\u2019s wrong made me the person I am today.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Not long after they met, Sashko says he and Antonina decided to stop speaking Russian. And they helped create a theater group that performed pieces calling out Russian aggression in Crimea and homophobia within Russian culture. Outside the theater, they were also calling on Ukraine to recognize L.G.B.T.Q. rights and taking part in some of the earliest Pride celebrations.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
I think it was 2015, the biggest slogan of this Pride was that we exist. And there were like less than 50 people and lots and lots and lots of the police.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Since then, Pride in Kyiv has grown. In recent years, the parade has attracted thousands of people, part of a broader liberalization, especially among young people in the cities. But with that liberalization, there\u2019s also been a backlash. Sashko told me about a night last November when he and Antonina were approached by two men in the street.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
First they came up to us, and Antonina was wearing a tiny \u2014<\/p>\n
what\u2019s this thing called that\u2019s not a stripe but ribbon? Oh, I forgot the word.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Rainbow?<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
Rainbow. Yes, rainbow ribbon. Thanks. And I felt this danger right away the way they looked at us. And they were like about 50 meters away, and the street was empty. And one of them started following us. And they started talking to us in a very rude manner like, hey, are you fags? What are you wearing? Do you believe in God? Are you patriots? And they started pushing us and so on. And that was the first time when all I am like anti-violent person. If there is a chance for the words to work it out, I usually use the words.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
But then, one of the guys pushed Antonina to the ground.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
And I was like off. I went bananas. And I was so mad that I felt I could tear those men with my bare hands because I was like, I don\u2019t know where I got the strength. But it was like the first, maybe the second time in my life when I got to hit a person right in the face. And I felt so, I don\u2019t know, empowered. That was the word. Like I hit back, and they didn\u2019t expect it. Like, they thought that they were like no attacking to fags who couldn\u2019t hit back.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
The attack was still fresh in Sashko\u2019s mind when Russian forces invaded Ukraine just a few months later. It was all part of what was weighing on him and Antonina that night they spent huddled in their bathroom considering their options.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
I definitely had doubts like, I was not afraid to go and fight, but I was really \u2014 I felt a great anxiety if I would fit in. And being gay was part of things that gave me that anxiety. But on the second day when Russia went full scale and when we understood that it was not a joke, it\u2019s going to be for a long time, we couldn\u2019t make any other choice really. What mattered was to protect our country.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
So that\u2019s how Sashko and Antonina came to enlist in this war, fighting to protect a country that hadn\u2019t always protected them alongside soldiers who in peacetime might have been their enemies.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Oleksandr Zhuhan<\/dt>\n
- \n
I\u2019m not considering the option of losing my freedom, because for an L.G.B.T.Q. person to lose freedom, to get captured by the Russians is worse than death, so I\u2019ll be fighting until I win or I die.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Hi, Courtney. It\u2019s the eighth of March, Tuesday. So I\u2019m going to go on describing what life has become for me since the war started.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
Not long after he enlisted, Sashko sent me this voice memo.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN It\u2019s been 13 days since Russia attacked Ukraine for no reason. I\u2019m sick now, and almost everyone in our unit is either sick or getting better.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s because it\u2019s always cold in here. We\u2019re sleeping on the floor now in sleeping bags. But I\u2019m not complaining, it\u2019s just that you ask me to describe what it is like here. I go patrolling three times a day.<\/p>\n
On these patrols, Sashko and Antonina were often together but still keeping their relationship a secret.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN The commander is very loyal. Well, he doesn\u2019t know or he doesn\u2019t want to know that we are a gay couple. We don\u2019t touch or we don\u2019t hold hands, we don\u2019t hug each other. And the riskiest thing that my husband has done since the first day he kissed me on the forehead when I said that I probably had temperature. And he pressed his lips against my forehead like just to check if I had temperature. But it was a kiss, I knew it.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s the one person who can \u2014<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know, who can calm me down and ask if I\u2019m OK.<\/p>\n
Hello, Sashko? OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Courtney, can you hear me now?<\/p>\n
I can hear you. Can you hear me?<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Oh, that\u2019s perfect. Yeah.<\/p>\n
As winter turned into spring, Russia continued to focus a lot of its air power on Kyiv. At this point, the volunteer forces were largely playing a support role away from the fighting. So Sashko and Antonina weren\u2019t seeing active combat, but the war was all around them.<\/p>\n
How are you?<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Well, it\u2019s been tough time. Tonight, there were like three regions where the bombs fell, and one of them was right next to us, next to our base. But it\u2019s OK. We\u2019re alive and more or less healthy. In 15 minutes, I\u2019ll have to go to unpack the big cars with provisions and ammunition. So that\u2019s our job. That\u2019s the riskiest thing I\u2019ve done so far. We\u2019re just defending the base. And how are you feeling about that being your role right now?<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN I\u2019m OK. Well, on the first day when we came here, lots of guys, they were like, wow, I want to go and fight and so on. And I was like, I\u2019m pretty much OK with the things as they are now. And the terrible thing is that we are getting used to this state of things. And I don\u2019t want this to be my usual state.<\/p>\n
The day before yesterday, we went to the place where we learn to shoot guns. We have Kalashnikovs, and I was thinking about my old sewing machine because I work in the theater so I can saw costumes for a theater place. And I was thinking about, well, I used to hate to oil my sewing machine, but I would love to do it now instead of oiling my gun. So it was like, you know, those flashbacks about what life used to be.<\/p>\n
Hi, Courtney. It\u2019s been a month and two days since the beginning of the war, and I have been thinking a lot about it one hell of a time, which happened not so often because we are either too busy or too exhausted to think.<\/p>\n
There are things that depress me, but there are good things though.<\/p>\n
For example, some people from our unit, they added us as friends on Facebook. And one of them came up to me the other day and he said, I read your post on Facebook. And he said, I didn\u2019t put a like below this post, but I really want to say that I think it\u2019s a great post and I liked it.<\/p>\n
In the post, Sashko talked about the similarities between the fight for L.G.B.T.Q. rights and Ukrainian independence. He said that where Russia was driven by fear and hate, he hoped Ukraine would follow a different path after the war, a path of tolerance and acceptance.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN So it was a good thing, and that really made my day.<\/p>\n
For the next few weeks, Sashko\u2019s unit stayed in the same warehouse in Kyiv, protecting ammunition and resupplies for the regular army troops that were pushing the Russians back in other parts of the city. Then in April, Ukrainian forces retook the suburbs, places like Bucha, where hundreds of civilians were tortured and killed. Sashko messaged that he and Antonina had been moved and were now doing a different job but still mainly on guard duty. A few days later, we got on the phone.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Hi, Courtney.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Antonina Ramanova<\/dt>\n
- \n
Hello, Courtney.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
And I got to hear Antonina for the first time.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Yeah, Courtney, the thing is, Antonina speaks very little English.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Antonina Ramanova<\/dt>\n
- \n
My English is not very good.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Courtney Stein<\/dt>\n
- \n
So Antonina just listened while Sashko and I talked. Sashko said that now he assumed people in their unit understood that he and Antonina were a couple, but they still weren\u2019t publicly acknowledging their relationship.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN But sometimes we like, I don\u2019t know, touch fingers or \u2014 well, that\u2019s mostly it. We touch fingers. That\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
I saw on your Facebook pages that you have decorated your guns with stickers. OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Yeah.<\/p>\n
It feels like a small act of resistance.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Yeah. And our guns really stand out from the other guns.<\/p>\n
Can you describe them? OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Yes. So like there\u2019s a rainbow and a unicorn and a pineapple.<\/p>\n
Do other people decorate their guns or is it just you guys?<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN No, not really. We are the only ones with the stickers. Now, I saw one more person with a sticker, but it was like a sticker of a skull. And we have those optimistic, cute stickers.<\/p>\n
And has your commander, anyone ever mentioned it like as a security concern or question you about it? OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Yeah, yeah, yeah. One person came up to me like two days ago and said, that sticker has lots of white and it\u2019s going to be a problem if we fight in the darkness like it could be seen from afar. And I said, OK, so when we fight in the darkness, I\u2019ll take it off.<\/p>\n
At the end of April, Putin declared victory in Mariupol, and Russian troops continued to push into Eastern and Southern Ukraine where hundreds of Ukrainian troops were dying every day. Sashko sent me a text message. Their unit had been given a choice, they could pack up and go volunteer in Kyiv as civilians or they could help bolster the military\u2019s ranks and join another battalion and be sent to the front lines in the south.<\/p>\n
This time, the decision wasn\u2019t so clear. Sashko thought that he could be more useful as a volunteer. But for Antonina, returning to Kyiv was out of the question. Sashko wrote me that Antonina was intent on going with or without him. So he decided he was going too. But they weren\u2019t sent right away.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN We\u2019re waiting here for the transfer.<\/p>\n
Weeks passed. Then at the end of May, Sashko got back in touch.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Hi, Courtney. Sorry for not responding to you right away.<\/p>\n
Things had been busy, he said.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN And on Wednesday, that\u2019s tomorrow, we are going to Mykolaiv. Mykolaiv is a city in the south of Ukraine. It\u2019s close to Odessa.<\/p>\n
Mykolaiv, Sashko explained, was part of the New frontline in the war. Like in Mariupol to the east, the Russians had managed to cut off water to Mykolaiv, forcing many of the city\u2019s half a million residents to flee.<\/p>\n
Before leaving for the south, Sashko and Antonina were sent home to Kyiv for a few days. Their apartment hadn\u2019t been damaged in the shelling. And for the first time in the three months since they signed up for the territorial defense, they were able to sleep in their own bed. And with the Russians no longer anywhere near the city, cafes and shops were open again.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN We were walking around the city, and I felt like I was walking next to a fish tank looking at people who are having their lattes. And the war seemed very real, but this life in Kyiv, the peaceful life seemed like something impossible. And I could physically feel it. I felt weak at my knees, and I had a strange feeling in my stomach and everything seemed so unstable.<\/p>\n
And I just can\u2019t pull myself together. Everything feels like a very bad, meaningless movie without the end. And the worst thing, the thing that I\u2019m afraid most is that the war is going to be for like two, three, five, eight years more.<\/p>\n
Sashko and Antonina met up with a friend from the theater world while in Kyiv. But Sashko could only think about war. He no longer related to his past life, and he was distracted by his upcoming deployment.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN And the thing that I\u2019m worried about is that in the new battalion, maybe there will be like real army people with strong hierarchy. I have an idea that in Mykolaiv in that new battalion, I\u2019m going to be more open about my sexuality. Like I\u2019m not going to wait if anyone asks or I\u2019m not going to let them be guessing.<\/p>\n
A few days later, I heard from Sashko again. They had made it to Mykolaiv.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Hey there, Courtney. Hope you\u2019re hearing me OK.<\/p>\n
They\u2019d begun digging trenches in anticipation of a new Russian offensive.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN And today when we met our commander, and he was like getting acquainted, speaking to us, giving his speech, he said, I\u2019ve had gay guys in my unit before and it was no problem with them. So if I see or hear any cases of homophobia, this unit is not a place for homophobia. Is that clear? And we are not going to talk about that again.<\/p>\n
He said, I don\u2019t care who you are or what you do until you break the rules. So if you\u2019re a good fighter, then I\u2019m OK with you.<\/p>\n
Russian troops were sending a near-constant stream of bombs and missiles toward Mykolaiv. Huge swathes of the city had been burned to the ground or completely destroyed. But on one quiet evening, I was able to talk to Sashko by phone. And I asked him to tell me more about what happened with his commander.<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN He said, I know that there are guys in our unit who are gay. Like, he just looked at me and I raised my hand like, here I am, hello.<\/p>\n
He made the things clear, you see.<\/p>\n
And how did the other people in the unit respond?<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN They were like, OK. Yeah. They didn\u2019t say much. I mean, the way they talk, they are not like some narrow-minded, homophobic savages. What I expected because I expected the worst. Army is still a world of manly men, but we are not \u2014 I mean, I don\u2019t feel threatened physically and I feel much more confident now. I really feel like here I just have to be like a good soldier. And that\u2019s like some guarantee that at least the commanders will protect me if anything happens. But I\u2019m sure that nothing bad will happen.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, I got this message from Sashko. OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Hey, Courtney. Sorry for taking so long to respond to your message. Here\u2019s just another piece of information, which I think is important to see a bigger picture of what\u2019s happening here in Ukraine. So yesterday I think, that was yesterday, L.G.B.T.Q. person was beaten.<\/p>\n
And that happened when the guy was going to give an interview about his boyfriend who had died in this Russian-Ukrainian war. And at that time, a group of young men came up to him and they attacked him. And they started shouting homophobic things and they beat him.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what to add.<\/p>\n
Over many months of conversation, Sashko and I had talked a lot about his hopes for the future and for the future of Ukraine. So many of them revolved around his uncertainty of what version of the country would greet him and Antonina if and when the war finally ended. But one time, I\u2019d gotten a different answer.<\/p>\n
Do you think about the future?<\/p>\n
OLEKSANDR ZHUHAN Yeah, I sometimes stop and think about the future. And I\u2019m trying not to make some great plans like, oh, I\u2019m going to write a play about this war or I\u2019m going to, I don\u2019t know, to write a song. Just very, very small things, down to earth things. Like my mom, she lives in the Central Ukraine.<\/p>\n
And they bought a house in the village. And they went there yesterday for the first time. And she sent me a video and she said, we\u2019re waiting for you and Antonina to come and live there and repair it because the house is very old. And there\u2019s a garden with fruit trees. And I was, oh my God, yeah. I\u2019d really love to do that, mom.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n
- Lulu Garcia-Navarro<\/dt>\n
- \n
\u201cFirst Person\u201d is a production of New York Times Opinion. We\u2019ll be back next Thursday with a new episode. Today\u2019s episode was produced by Courtney Stein. It was edited by Stephanie Joyce and Lisa Tobin with help from Kaari Pitkin. Engineering by Isaac Jones. Original music by Isaac Jones, Pat McCusker and Carole Sabouraud.<\/p>\n
Fact-checking by Mary Marge Locker. The rest of the first person team includes Cristal Duhaime, Christina Djossa, Olivia Natt, Derek Arthur and Jason Pagano. Special thanks to Kristina Samulewski, Shannon Busta, Kate Sinclair, Jeffrey Miranda, Paula Szuchman, Irene Noguchi, Patrick Healy and Katie Kingsbury.<\/p>\n<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Courtney Stein, First Person, July 7th 2022 When Putin invaded, Oleksandr Zhuhan chose to defend a country that hasn\u2019t always defended him. TRANSCRIPT Lulu Garcia-Navarro From The earliest days of the war in Ukraine, we\u2019ve seen the images of everyday Ukrainians signing up to defend their country against the Russian invasion leaving behind the lives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13664"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13672,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13664\/revisions\/13672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}