19 March 2024, Tuesday, 11:54
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Yuri Krylach: It is horrible when your president is uneducated and unpleasant person

Yuri Krylach: It is horrible when your president is uneducated and unpleasant person

Why do IT specialists go on strikes?

Yuri Krylach is a director and co-founder of a private business. He is specialized in system integration and IT-services in small business. He was participating in the Maidan movement for a few months. After the victory in “Revolution of Dignity” he became a volunteer. Now he provides fighters in antiterrorist operation zone (AOZ) with clothes, computers and drugs.

- I’m not a member of a certain volunteer organization. I’m just acquainted with many people starting from medical men and ending with those in the frontline. I simply do what I like. Now I’m trying to assist with everything possible: making up first-aid sets, delivery of articles of daily necessity in the AOZ, and so on, says Yuri to charter97.org.

-A few days ago Ukraine celebrated the anniversary of the Euromaidan. The participators shared the information that besides the common reasons they had their own grounds to fight. Did you also have one?

- Actually, I went there to meet my colleagues. We drank tea and then one thing led to another.

It’s horrible when your president is uneducated and unpleasant person. I can’t even imagine how one of this kind can run the country…

That was an inner protest against what was happening. It is unbearably difficult to realize that your country has been attacked. It is impossible to stay at home. You always feel like doing something.

- There is a cliché that IT-specialists live in a virtual world. What has made you to face a real world?

- I can’t agree on this point. We are all different. There are people who like video games, but also many of my colleagues have wide interests. They are extreme sports enthusiasts enjoying BASE and rope jumping.

The ordinary IT-specialist today is not a weird person wearing a sweater who is just facing the monitor but he is an advanced one. We earn enough money to take the liberty of going in for technical sports. Now many of us buy weapons.

Yuri Krylach in the photo to the left

Yuri Krylach in the photo to the left

- This is, actually, connected with the war, isn’t it?

- Yes. During the Euromaidan we bought snowboard equipment though some of us had never gone in for snowboarding. Having met a person wearing snowboard equipment it became evident that he was the Maidan’s participant.

Now many people have started to buy weapons. They are learning how to shoot, dig tranches, camouflage.

- Now Ukraine has a very wide volunteer activity. Do you share duties when providing assistance to soldiers in the AOZ?

- Volunteers are shared according to interests and opportunities so they are able to satisfy various needs in the army. Some keep in touch with a team or a few soldiers then discover what they need and after it they collect money, equipment and cloths and deliver it on the frontline.

Some are acting another way. Few of my friends are involved only in medicine so they buy necessary drugs for the army and deliver them directly to the soldiers. They also teach our soldiers how to use NATO first-aid set as it has helped to survive many soldiers.

Some deal only with automobiles. They raise funds abroad and buy off-road vehicles and drive it here. I know those who have already driven in the AOZ for about 20 SUVs.

Others write soft for artillery, a program to calculate the trace of bullets, and install it on the tablets. Now we have bought 10 tablets and installed a special program there. We handed it over for them to be able to accelerate aiming in hundred times.

We act in various directions. There are companies that deal with drones. These are both former model airplane builders and people interested in it. They raise funds and buy component parts. First they learned and now they teach soldiers to drive drones. They arrive on the front line, drive drones, make photos, deliver data to the artillery, and in parallel with teaching soldiers.

Some volunteers, the most freaky, evacuate the injured from the frontline because of absence of medical men. This is a big problem as a medical person may be 30 km far from the station.

Even girls assist on the frontline. What did we start from? Someone was called up for military service and his girlfriend decided to buy a bulletproof vest. She bought and delivered it and then saw the real state of things. So that is how the permanent assistance to this military part has begun.

- Do volunteers do things the authorities can’t cope with?

- Yes, it’s true. The problem is that people’s money is “washed out” and some officials use this situation. There were cases when something had been delivered and recognized and money was just taken out as something had been bought. There were cases when something delivered by volunteers was stolen.

We have a lot of problems but nevertheless we are moving in the right direction. Besides, we observe the transfer of well-known volunteers to government institutions. Yuriy Biryukov is a current counselor of the president of Ukraine. He acts as a link between volunteers and authorities.

- It all has game elements but at the same time you have experienced the most tragic time during the Maidan.

- Definitely at times we were scared but we had no right to leave the Maidan as there were our friends and someone had to be on cordons and barricades.

I don’t consider myself as a hero because there were people who risked their lives. Perhaps I’m lucky as I have not been injured but also to stay at home was not a good variant. How should I have left my friends there? I could not even let a thought of it.

During the Maidan I communicated with different people. I used to do logistics for a while so at night I stood somewhere on the barricades, in the morning I slept off and during the day I delivered fire woods, tires and other necessities. From time to time I used to collect money, buy bulletproof vests. So called hundreds of Self-Defense arrived from Zakarpattia. They used to live in awful conditions and sleep on a pavement. My friends and me raised funds and bought all necessary construction materials. As soon as they were delivered guys with no delay built comfortable bunk beds with no risk to fall ill when sleeping on.

In theory we could have been stopped and arrested. But the situation had been thought over. A few cars were moving in opposite direction, the truck with construction materials was provided with all enclosures and a few cars accompanied us to be safe.

In the process we forged horizontal relationships with various people. That is why this “union” has switched to the war with Russia.

- You went on barricades, you were shot at. Didn’t you want to leave it all behind?

- Definitely it was horrible. One of the most prominent moments was the night on February 18-19 when Trade Union Building was on fire. I arrived there during the daytime when the barricades at Grushevskogo Str. had not yet been broken. A half an hour later riot policemen broke the barricades and we had to retreat on Maidan. We had 15 people in our group. Then we made a decision in case we took a breakthrough operation the car owners would drive the injured away. Not far from Prorizna Str. we had an office and its owner waited for somebody suddenly needed help.

We were presented an ultimatum: to leave this place till 8 p.m. otherwise we would be dispersed. Anyway, the crowd was getting bigger and everyone started to take up arms. I found veneer shield and a piece of rebar then put on a bulletproof vest, parachute helmet, knee and elbow pads. When the attack started we were next to the Trade Union Building. The shooting began…

One of the moments: a person came to me and asked what had happened with his eye. There was a hole in his glasses and his eye was leaking out…It seemed like he had been shot by a shotgun pellet. I was wearing snowboard glasses so they could resist but this guy not so lucky.

Then a few shells exploded but I had light grazes, no injuries…

- Were these flash bang grenades or…?

- They used to tie them up with screws, balls, adhesive tape. For instance, when a flash bang grenade exploded I got one of my pant legs torn off and now I have a burn on my leg, in fact, nothing critical in comparison with others.

At 10 a.m. when people from Lviv and reinforcements arrived so I wrote on Facebook for my friends to take me home. I left my “shield and sword” there. One of my neighbors arrived and we left for home. What surprised me most that passing Bessarabka District I saw an ordinary life: people were going to work…

- You have mentioned that former Euromaidan activists are taking military trainings now. Do you want to go on war?

- Yes. We have been taking our trainings since early May. Many people have started to get silence to buy weapons and to form so-called “units of protection rangers”.

We laid the foundation of the organization when “titushky” started to arrive in Kiev. A lot of acting structures are based on the ground of these organizations. Military veterans provide us with instructions.

I guess we have thousands and even tens of thousands of people are more or less prepared to military actions. We learn the tactics, the ways of interaction during the battle and so on.

- Will you have to defend Kiev? What do you think?

- In case the frontline approaches to the city borders we will form militia troops or guerrilla teams. We will stand for our city.

I was talking to the people keeping touch with politicians. So during May-June some of them were really scared and were ready to leave Kiev as they were waiting on aggression. I don’t know the real picture then, but today this problem is quite urgent.

- How does your family treat the situation?

- They act the same way. My wife takes nurse courses. The child also takes wrestling, different kinds of power exercises.

- How old is your child?

- It is a girl and she is eight. She talks to the soldiers at school and at home. Children are more worried about this situation than adults. They see what their parents do…

- You tell that many of the citizens in Kiev are getting ready for the war. But it seems like Kiev lives its ordinary life.

- The story with Maidan is still in the air. When at Hrushevskogo you could hear shots and in the other street people were eating sushi, drinking coffee and having fun.

- Could you name an approximate number of active citizens or simply observers?

It seems like we have 1 per cent of active citizens: they do volunteering, take military actions or practice medical support. We also have 10 per cent of more or less active citizens. The rest 90 per cent are passive and they “wake up” only when his/her son or one of the relatives is called up to the army. Then they start to ask volunteers to give them a bulletproof vest as a gift.

- Does business support volunteers?

- Definitely yes. For instance, automobile repair shops repair cars for free. The vitamin producers may provide with 10, 000 portions of vitamins or water. Food is often got for free. For example, shipping company “Nova Pochta” carries cargos for volunteers at no cost. Privatbank abolished bank chargers when money transfers to volunteers’ cards.

I won’t speak on oligarchs. I don’t know any of them. But I guess some of them provide assistance. But Akhmetov is not among them. Some people say that they pay taxes and this is enough to have a placid conscience. I guess our nation is our main supporter.

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