“One should not die for Ukraine, but kill”: the story of the ex-director of nudist beaches, and now a major of the Armed Forces. VIDEO

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Hero of Ukraine, winner of the “Gold Star” honorary award and knight of the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytskyi Kyrylo Veres was the director of nudist beaches in Kyiv before the war. The man had no combat experience before. Currently, he has 9 years of military service under his belt. Veres told his story to the “Ukrainian Witness” project. Before the war, Veres was the director of the “Dovbychka” nudist beach on Trukhanovo Island in Kyiv. However, he went to fight in 2014. He spent a third of his life at the front. Currently, he is the commander of the K2 unit of the 54th separate mechanized brigade and holds the rank of major. The man jokes that his position is not a profession, but a “diagnosis”. Veres met the full-scale invasion of the Russian Federation in combat positions. “On February 21, our brigade commander said that a full-scale invasion could begin tomorrow. On February 22, 100% of my personnel were on the front line of defense: mortars, artillerymen, etc. This was happening in Krasnohorivka, Donetsk region. There was no fear, I knew that a full-scale invasion the war will happen sooner or later. But I did not expect that the Russians would go on the offensive in the rest of the territory of Ukraine. I wanted to think that they would go to Donbas,” says the soldier. The name of his unit – K2 – comes from the name and patronymic of Veres himself. According to his passport, he is Kyrylo Kyrylovych. When thinking about the name, the unit was small, only 9 people. “We decided not to invent a bicycle. We just called ourselves K2,” explained the fighter. Kyrylo Veres. Photo: SCREEN “HROMADSKE” The soldier’s military career began with the encirclement of Slovyansk by Ukrainian troops in 2014. And already a year later, Veres together with his comrade in arms detained Yevgen Yerofeev and Oleksandr Oleksandrov, personnel officers of the Russian main regional administration. Later, they were exchanged for prisoner of war pilot Nadiya Savchenko. In March 2022, the major organized the defense of Maryinka in Donetsk region. There he also stopped the advance of the occupier’s troops on the southeastern outskirts of the city. Now the military is fighting in the Bakhmut direction. He calls his battalion “Bakhmutsky”, because many of his brothers – local people – are actually fighting for their city. “Everyone is standing against us here: the Akhmat special unit, the regular troops, and the militia of the LDNR. And the strongest of them are the representatives of Wagner. Not the most professional, but the strongest. They are the most motivated, the choice among them there is no: either they take our positions and after six months go home, or they refuse to go on the attack and are shot at point-blank range,” says Veres. In his opinion, the “best” of them are the regular troops of the Russian Federation. He also shared the story of how his unit “chased” a Russian survivor after the battle with a drone. Then, after a fierce battle, approximately 100 Russians were eliminated, three or four survived. With a drone, Veres showed the occupier the direction in which to move in order to surrender. The enemy followed the drone. “A person is an animal that really wants to live. It is difficult to kill an animal, but a person can also think. He does everything to survive. Andryusha (that’s the name of the Russian man) thought that I was signaling him with a drone, because he really wanted to live.” , – says Kyrylo. In order to be successful in war, according to the soldier, you need to “have a bit of courage and a bit of training.” According to Veres, Ukrainians “should not have a choice – to fight or not, since they attacked not Honduras, but our land.” “We are not here to save the world. Our task is to defend ourselves,” adds the fighter. Veres also admitted that he never considered the Russians to be weak. “They are strong. Not smart, but strong. And there are a lot of them. What to do with their huge mobilization resource? We must be wiser and destroy more. We must not die for Ukraine, but kill,” the major concluded. Read also: “I really want to hit the Kremlin.” Interview with the commander of combat group K2, Hero of Ukraine Kyryl Veres

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