As a chaplain, he became an FPV drone operator. The story of “Gideon”

A member for a third of his life Club UP Victor goes side by side with the war. In 2014, together with his wife and young child, he lived in the center of Luhansk and was a direct witness of the pro-European Maidan and an eyewitness to how foreigners, who were later called “separatists”, began to be brought into the city.

For the next 10 years, separation from his family, volunteering, imprisonment and persecution for his faith awaited the man.

The man became an immigrant 800 kilometers from his native home. When full-scale war broke out, Victor continued to work, combining work with volunteering and military chaplaincy, until he decided to choose the path of a warrior – mobilizing in the Defense Forces and becoming an FPV drone operator.

After joining the army, Viktor chose the call sign “Gedeon”, which translates as “mighty warrior”. According to the biblical story, Gideon with a small army of about 300 men defeated an army of thousands of invaders.

“UP. Life” asked Viktor about ten years of personal war, the path from an Aitiv volunteer to a military serviceman and the place of God at the front.

The first months of the war: occupation, captivity and persecution because of faith

“In April 2014, the first battle took place in Luhansk and the occupation of the city began. Before that, every Sunday there was a procession of thousands of people supporting Ukraine: they came out with Ukrainian flags and shouted pro-Ukrainian slogans… And then, literally in one day, in the city a large number of strangers who supported Russia appeared”– recalls the Luhansk resident.

With the first riots, Viktor took his relatives to Khmelnytskyi, and he himself returned to his hometown to evacuate the locals.

For four months, the man lived in the occupation, taking people to safe territory for free, passing separatist checkpoints every time. At the same time, he began to cooperate with Ukrainian intelligence. After one of the conversations with the special services of Ukraine, Victor’s car was stopped by the occupiers, and the man was sent for questioning.

“I was accused of cooperating with Ukrainian intelligence and bringing sabotage groups to Luhansk during the evacuation. I immediately confirmed cooperation with intelligence, but it was not true about the sabotage groups. And even under torture, the occupiers did not manage to get the answer they wanted to hear.”– said “Gedeon”.

The man hoped that he would be interrogated and releasedbecause he saw in his actions a manifestation of sacrifice, not a crime:

“I thought that I was doing, as they say, a holy work. I was taking children and elderly people out of shelling… But I was locked up in the basement. In the very center of Luhansk, in the former SBU building.

I was told that I would be there until the end of the war.”

Viktor was considered missing for the first two weeks. The man had no idea how much time he would spend “in the basement” and what to expect.

Faith helped the Luhansk citizen. Even today, Viktor primarily associates himself with a believer. And it was spiritual practices that kept the man in good spirits during inhuman torture. He also morally supported people who were in the same cell with him.

The Christian had to pay for his faith. One of the methods of psychological torture in captivity was “spiritual conversations” with a Russian Orthodox priest.

Victor is a Protestant, which “Satan” didn’t particularly like – that was the nickname of the Russian priest who did everything possible to “convert” “Gideon”. In particular, he “exorcised” demons from him.

While Viktor was considered missing, his wife came to Luhansk from the west of the country and began looking for her husband: first in morgues, and then in so-called prisons where prisoners were kept.

The woman miraculously found out Viktor’s whereabouts and for several weeks every day she came “to the basement” and handed over food to her husband. After some time, rather due to a strange coincidence of circumstances and the active activity of a woman, Viktor was released from captivity.

“When I was released, I asked my wife where we were going, she answered that in Shchastya (city in Donetsk region – ed.).

– How is Happiness? It is occupied, I said.

– No, not occupied, – answered the wife.

That is, it turned out that I was deceived the entire time I was in captivity. After all, the Russians assured us that Happiness is now theirs.”

Start life over. The way of the immigrant

At first, the couple went to Khmelnytskyi region, but in two months they moved to Kyiv region.

According to Viktor, it is not easy to be an immigrant both in 2014 and now. Landlords were suspicious of Luhansk and Donetsk residents. They could refuse if they saw a registration from the Luhansk region in the passport.

A man who had an apartment in the center of the city and all the good things of life left in Luhansk, had to work as a handyman in order to provide life for his family. Subsequently, Viktor decided to master the profitable field of information technologies – IT, which he was engaged in until the beginning of 2023.

War 2.0. The way of the chaplain

At the beginning of February 2022, the “Gideon” family began to actively prepare for war.

A few days before the full-scale invasion, Viktor took his family abroad, and on the 27th he returned to Kyiv region and began to do the same thing as he did 8 years ago, when the war first knocked on his home – to evacuate people. In total, Viktor managed to take more than two hundred people to a safe place.

On March 13, 2022, the volunteer came under the first shelling near Irpen. Then the Russian troops shelled the famous bridge.

“There is shelling, I am hiding in a pit with the military. Five or six civilians are walking nearby, and I run out of the pit to the whistling of bullets and take the civilians to my car to take them away.

Among those people was a family with a pregnant woman who was waiting for the birth of a son. They walked from Irpen to Kyiv. The couple said they would name the child Viktor, after me.” – the man recalls.

Before the beginning of the Russian invasion, the Aitivite was also a pastor in the Protestant church, so with the Great War, Victor became a military chaplain on public grounds. The man received a special license and was able to drive on the front line for the spiritual service.

The pastor traveled to the soldiers in positions along the entire front line. The main tasks for a chaplain are spiritual, educational and psychological work, this is specifically stated in the documents.

“I worked with both the military and civilians. However, after a trip to Bakhmut in 2023, I stopped cooperating with civilians completely. This happened after a dialogue with a person who expected a “Russian peace” in Bakhmut. – adds Victor.

According to the man, the hardest thing in war is to lose people you know, but it is even harder to listen to people who remain in the war zone and understand that they are waiting for the Russians to free them.

According to “Gideon’s” observations, a large part of the people he met in the war believe in God:

“They read psalms, prayers. When we left the position, I prayed before leaving and said “Amen”. I have never heard anyone oppose prayer.”.

The chaplain shared the story of a Christian miracle when soldiers from his unit, during the battles in the East, under very heavy fire, began to read together Psalm 90where there are words in particular “A thousand will fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right, but they will not come near you”.

A mine flew near the boys, fell into the ground 15 meters from them and did not explode.

According to Viktor, the most frequent requests from the military to him as a chaplain is war fatigue, especially among those who have served for more than a year – the military is very much looking forward to the demobilization law.

“I have no hatred for Russians.” The way of the warrior

Until the beginning of 2024, Victor combined the main work of an Aitivite and military chaplaincy. But at the end of 2023, he finally decided to become a soldier.

“I was very morally undermined by the mass shelling of Ukraine. I understood that Russia was fighting with peaceful people and I could not influence it in any way.”– the man explained his decision.

It took about a month for an already active soldier to master a new profession. Viktor became an FPV drone operator:

“I don’t see the work of the FPV operator as eliminating or destroying the Russians. I see it as saving the lives of our guys. Because when I use a drone to destroy a tank or some mortar or any equipment – it’s always the life of our guys that the Russians saved could kill or injure.

I consider it a God-pleasing thing and I plan to do it as long as I can.”.

To be a military serviceman for Viktor is to pay a debt to Ukraine.

“I have no hatred for the Russians. I would equally fight with any nation that invaded Ukraine. If you don’t perceive them as ordinary people, it’s easier to eliminate them. I treat it like a job.

It is a duty to the country to protect it”says the soldier.

One of the criteria that kept “Gedeon” in civilian life was a highly paid job as an Haitian, but for Viktor there are no economic, cultural or other fronts, except for the military: “There is a front and a rear. And that’s all”.

According to the man, even from a financial point of view, a drone operator can be much more useful for the state:

“I am an FPVishnik and I managed to hit a tank worth 3 million dollars. The average IT citizen in the third tax group will pay up to 5 thousand dollars in taxes in a year.

If we compare the numbers, then any volunteer, not taking into account large charitable funds, will not be able to collect as much money for the army as a skilled fighter can cause damage to the enemy..

Viktor is currently serving in the hot spots of the front. He considers himself happy and tries to develop himself in his free time, in particular, he reads books in English. And the man is driving Telegram channelwhere he talks about his journey from an Aitivite to a warrior.

“I’m very happy, I’m in my place”– the warrior “Gideon” summarizes our conversation.

Tetyana Plyatsok, UP