ENGHeroes behind frontlines. We are the first responders who keep wartime Kyiv going

The Village Ukraine tells the stories of the people making sure that life in Kyiv can continue despite numerous and large-scale missile strikes. These are our heroes behind the frontlines: rescue workers, medical staff, road workers, and energy and water supply technicians. People who repair roads after they’re struck by missiles, attend to their patients during air-raid sirens, and restore the supply of power and water to Kyivan households after Russian attacks. These are the stories of the people whose critical work has become all the more important in these most trying times.

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Viacheslav Matsiuk is the head of a road repair department responsible for Kyiv’s Shevchenkivskyi district; he is in charge of preparing schedules and plans for repair crews. On 10 October, however, things didn’t go according to plan. The road repair staff in the Shevchenkivskyi district had to put aside all other work in order to help traffic resume on Taras Shevchenko Boulevard, one of Kyiv’s central arteries. To do this, they had to repair the road surface where the impact of a missile had formed a crater.

Matsiuk said it was not a technically challenging task. But damage to the water mains caused a significant problem; repairs of the main delayed Matsiuk’s team by over a day. Only then were the road workers able to get to work: they laid a base of crushed stone, then a temporary surface made of broken up asphalt and concrete. Traffic on Shevchenko Boulevard resumed around 18:00 on 11 October. The next day, the final surface, a mix of asphalt and concrete, was laid.

«What can I say, the team that was responsible for clearing up the debris experienced the most intense emotions; they saw everything in the immediate aftermath of the strike. By the time we got there, the burned-out cars and bodies had already been taken away, it was less horrifying»,

– Matsiuk recalls.

Matsiuk has worked in the road repairs department for the past 12 years, since graduating from university. He was a workman first, then a foreman, and now he is the head of the repair department. His work schedule usually involves repairing potholes, sidewalks and roads. However, his routine has been thrown up in the air since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

During the first month of the full-scale war, there were no road repairs; instead, Matsiuk’s department carried out the orders of the military administration, helping to transport goods, set up checkpoints, and deploy anti-tank obstacles.

«We saw the city change before our eyes. First the checkpoints were built, then dismantled,” Matsiuk said. “We started returning to our regular schedule once [the Russian forces] withdrew from Kyiv».

In the past, Kyiv residents seemed for the most part to complain about the road department. Now they admire the speed with which traffic is able to resume following missile strikes. Has Matsiuk noticed any changes in how municipal workers are treated? “You know, usually the people who complain are those who have no clue about how anything works. For example, when spring arrives, everyone starts complaining about potholes, because people don’t understand that from a technical point of view it’s too early to carry out roadworks,” the head of the road repairs department said. “Now everything’s changing. In the past people would complain if power was gone for even an hour; now the majority are quite understanding. The war has forced people to consider some of the issues from our perspective, rather than the perspective of an average Kyiv resident.”

The Kyivvodokanal (Kyiv Waterworks) repairs department is responsible for handling the largest and most difficult incidents that affect Kyiv’s waterworks, like the one on Volodymyrska Street. Other municipal service workers call the members of the department Ramazanovites, after Ramazan Mustafaiev, who has been the department’s head for the past 17 years.

«Everyone knows we respond swiftly, that we are in charge of it. We are first and best in all of Kyiv. Our department tackles the most difficult challenges. We are like the paratroopers of Kyivvodokanal»,

Mustafaiev says, smiling.

Before 24 February, Mustafaiev supervised four brigades, around 50 people in total. When the full-scale war started, nine of them joined the army. There are now only two repair brigades working in Kyiv, and the shortage of engineers is keenly felt.

“As department head, it is my duty to visit all the sites, give advice on how to proceed with the repairs. But sometimes I end up getting stuck at one location, waiting for the workers to reach the waterworks. Our guys are experienced, but there are times when something slips their attention. Still, either the engineer or the head of the department should bear responsibility,” Mustafaiev explained.

Mustafaiev has spent over 30 years working at Kyivvodokanal. He came to Ukraine from Azerbaijan when he was 17. He joined the army, then enrolled in a university; after the first year, he got a job at Kyivvodokanal and gradually worked his way up to become the head of department.

“Since the very morning of 24 February, everyone has been asking me where I was and what I was going to do. I told all of the [Kyivvodokanal] dispatchers: ‘Don’t worry, I won’t leave you alone, I’m with you,’” Mustafaiev said of the first days after the invasion. He and his team worked through weekends, because many of the workers from the repairs department from Chernihiv Oblast were caught under Russian occupation. There weren’t enough workers, and there were plenty of repairs to make.

An accident could take an entire day to tackle. Kyivvodokanal ended up working for almost 36 hours at the site of the attack on Volodymyrska Street, though Mustafaiev stressed that his team went to great lengths to ensure local households had running water even as they were working to repair the waterworks:

«We were trying to do a good job. Stakes were high politically. We wanted to show that we don’t care. Whatever happens in the war, we continue to carry out our work. We know how to do it and we love it».

We meet Ramzan on Pushkinska Street, at the site of another accident. His team has been approached at least four times within 20 minutes; people ask when the water supply will be resumed. “Between six and seven? Thank you very much! Thank you!” a local resident says; it’s clear that she is grateful for Kyivvodokanal’s help beyond just this particular instance.

“This wouldn’t have happened in the past,” Mustafaiev says. “It’s just now that people are realizing that despite the war our guys are always working, even when the air-raid sirens have been sounded. There’s more understanding and respect now. Sometimes they bring us sandwiches, tea, and coffee, and share them with us. It’s really true that we might not have had this mutual understanding if it wasn’t for the war. People would look down on us in the past, but now we’re like gods to some of them.”

Our conversation with Mustafaiev is constantly being interrupted by phone calls. At one point, someone calls him from the front: a former subordinate, now a soldier, is calling to wish Ramzan a happy birthday. “Bring me a katsap’s right ear,” Mustafaiev candidly remarks. [katsap is a derogatory Ukrainian term for someone from Russia - ed.] He adds: “The most important thing is that you’re all alive and well.”

Mustafaiev turned 50 that day. “I have three kids, two grandkids, I just want to live well, to enjoy myself…I like my job, I earn enough, you’d think I could just live and enjoy life. But now there’s this war here, there’s a war in Azerbaijan, it just breaks my heart,” he grows tearful saying this. The first thing Ramzan wants to do after Ukraine’s victory is buy tickets to Azerbaijan, where he goes every year, to hug and talk to his parents.

Paramedics receive requests for help via a tablet, which displays the reason for the call. The medics prepare accordingly, developing a strategy on how they will communicate with and treat the patient. On 10 October, teams of paramedics were ready to head to the site of an attack before they even received the first calls. As soon as they heard the first explosions, which rang out loud and clear at the Center for Emergency Medical Care and Disaster Medicine, the medics rushed to their ambulances.

“When you respond to a call like that, you have no idea what you’ll see on the scene. There’s sort of an inner turmoil that you have to get under control; you have to pull yourself together and just do your job,” Diana Mykulshyna, a doctor and head of an emergency medical assistance brigade, says, recalling the events of 10 October. “It was like a horror film. Cars were ablaze, there was smoke everywhere, water, lots of people, lots of glass.”

Mykulshyna says that the initial shock subsides as soon as she starts working. On the morning of 10 October, she and her partner were dealing with patients whose injuries were not critical: they stopped people’s bleeding and treated a woman who broke her spine while running away from the explosion.

“After witnessing that, you start to value life and your own contribution as a worker more. You learn the difference between a critical, emergency call and helping someone figure out how to take their medicine correctly,” Mykulshyna says, adding

«Sometimes it can be annoying, I want to somehow tell people that our job is to work in those [emergency] situations, not to act as visiting consultants. I want them to value our time, our labor, and our emotional resources».

The Center for Emergency Medical Care was forced to screen calls during the first month of the full-scale invasion: people calling in complaining about blood pressure or fever were ignored, as it was apparent that any part of Kyiv could be struck at any moment – paramedics had to be prepared to provide assistance immediately to anyone critically injured in Russian attacks. Later on, when the situation stabilized, paramedics made themselves available to all sorts of calls and complaints. “People had no idea who to turn to. Hospitals were closed, family practitioners fled the country. We treated people, they consulted us, shared [phone] numbers of volunteers, and advised people where they could find medicine,” Mykulshyna explains.

In the summer, work resumed its normal course, except for the days when Mykulshyna’s team was dispatched to the sites of Russian attacks. Mykulshyna denies that doctors feel relieved when attacks take place outside of their working hours: “No, it’s the other way round. I was off duty when [Russian] drones struck Zhylianska Street, but afterwards I talked to everyone about what happened, what they had to do. Because this is part of [gaining] experience. I need to know how best to work in a situation like that. So I was asking everyone about where they were, what they were doing, who coordinated everything, how they cooperated with the State Emergency Service and the police.”

Mykulshyna ended up working on Zhylianska Street, too. It took rescue workers several days to clear away the debris; paramedics were on duty during the entire process in case a survivor of the attack was found under the rubble.

«One of the women who lived in the building became sick when she recognised the body of her dead neighbor. We helped stabilize her blood pressure, offered her some emotional support,” the doctor recalls. “That’s also part of our job: to calm a patient down, to explain to them that we’re there, we’re with them, and will give them the help they need, because we know what we’re doing».

One night, they received a call about a fire in a building after curfew. “We got a call and were told to drive very carefully, because of the shootings and the activity of saboteurs,” Porechnyi recalls the events of last February. “We would drive past burning cars, that was normal. We wouldn’t even be dispatched to extinguish those.” But those were the only fires that were ignored. All other domestic fires had to be extinguished even when there was a risk of getting caught in a shooting or being confused for a saboteur. Vitalii and Oleksandr have experienced both shootings and being held at gunpoint.

In April they were finally able to return home from the fire department, to see their parents and loved ones. They had to cancel their vacations, but Oleksandr and Vitalii aren’t complaining about it: “Even if we were told we were needed here, but allowed to decide [whether to stay or go] – I’d still stay,” Lytvyn says.

Vitalii and Oleksandr are already making plans for after Ukraine’s victory. Oleksandr and his girlfriend are planning to visit all of Ukraine’s hero cities. [A hero city is an honorary title awarded for outstanding heroism during the war - ed.] Vitalii wants to make a similar trip but says that first he needs a few days to relax by a swimming pool somewhere, a cocktail in hand.

Are they able to get some rest now –with rolling blackouts operating throughout Kyiv – when after a grueling workday they might find their homes have no power or running water? “This happens not only when I get home from work but when I go to the gym to blow off some steam. But a few hours without power is really not that big of a deal, especially given that there’s a war in our country,” Porechnyi says.

Serhii Foroshcha has been a power engineer since the 1990s; he started as an electrician. Now he supervises brigades responsible for repairing power lines and transformer substations, and restoring the power supply following accidents, bad weather, and shelling, in the Vyshhorod district.

Kyiv Regional Power Grid is now operating according to a normal schedule, with time to carry out scheduled repairs, Serhii says. However, during the occupation and for a while after it was lifted, there was only enough time and personnel to carry out emergency repairs. During hostilities, his teams worked on the territory that sidled right up to the line of defense by the River Irpin.

Serhii headed a district unit during the hostilities. He says there were few workers then: some ended up in the occupied territories, others were evacuating their families from areas that were being shelled.

Serhii himself went straight to his workplace soon after the first explosions rang out on 24 February, got in touch with his managers and started to coordinate his teams’ work. “We received help from retirees who used to work at [Kyiv Regional Power Grid]. There aren’t too many of them, but they got there and told us: we will work if you need help. And they worked as volunteers for us, day and night. They’d go home to shower and get changed, and then get back to work,” Serhii Foroshcha recalls.

With time, regular staff started to return, too. Serhii would meet some of the ones escaping from Russian occupation by the destroyed bridge across the River Irpin. Kyiv Regional Power Grid set up temporary accommodation for engineers and their families. “We lived as one family,” the engineer says. Local residents from the city of Vyshhorod would join the power engineers at their bomb shelter during air-raid alarms. Everyone shared tea, food, and clothes.

“I’ve worked in the energy sector my entire life. I’ve worked at the same company,” Serhii Foroshcha says. “From the very beginning I knew that my job is to serve people. And regardless of circumstances, whether it’s war or peace, I pull my weight and do everything within my powers. We have rules and regulations, but for the most part our honor is what drives us. Every person must have this honor.

Everyone who works here is proud of their work; everyone is proud to wear their uniforms, and proud to be an energy worker. Everyone has now experienced the importance of this. The national economy wouldn’t survive without us».

Serhii hopes to go on a holiday by the sea or in the mountains after Ukraine’s victory. He hopes to sit at a big round table with his family, drink tea, grill meat, and forage for mushrooms with his wife, children and grandchildren.

Energy infrastructure has been the main target of Russian attacks on Kyiv in the last couple of months. Ukrzaliznytsia (Ukrainian Railways) traction substations have been damaged as a result of several attacks.

“When something’s struck, we repair it,” says Roman Skubak, concisely describing his job as the head of the power supply department at Ukraine’s South-Western Railways. He is responsible for almost 2,000 staff in several oblasts, including Kyiv Oblast.

Substations usually have to be re-connected to the power grid after a strike. Roman laughs: “I’d only read about this in books. You know, there’s this expression: ‘first stab’. The first time you do something new, it comes out creaky and rough, but then you find your way and rhythm with it.”

The beginning of the war was the most difficult part for Roman. The first attacks caused a real shock, the employees were stressed: “We are all first and foremost civilians, our reaction to the war was the same as everyone else’s,” Roman recalls the early days of the war. “But at the same time, we had to quickly make decisions that affected the entire country.”

During times of crisis, many things do not happen according to the rulebook. What happens when circumstances force railway workers to depart from rules and regulations? There’s lots of swearing in the dispatcher room, Roman says, laughing: “But on a serious note, the staff have learned how to respond [to emergencies] over the course of the war. In the past, we’d be stressed if we didn’t hit our targets. Now I don’t even know. This has become a routine, the phone is constantly ringing: there was a strike, there wasn’t a strike, there’s power, there’s no power, something’s been switched…”

Roman’s phone is full of photos his staff send him from the sites of Russian attacks. He has a video from a substation where his colleague’s son, who was guarding the station, was killed. “We are trying to make sure everyone is safe, even during the air-raid alarms. During this time I realized that metal can be repaired, everything can be repaired with time. Only people can't be repaired,” he says.

He evacuated his family – wife and children – from their native Kharkiv in early March. The day after they left, a Russian projectile struck an area right by their house, damaging their apartment.

His family is now in Kyiv. Roman has been working here since 2021. Between 24 February and early April he would only come home for a few hours once a week. Now his schedule has returned to normal. He was even able to take four days off this autumn. His Kharkiv neighbors have already installed new windows. “Life goes on, there’s nothing you can do about that.”