“The preserved icon and prayer”: the story of a soldier from Volyn, near whom an enemy ammunition exploded – News

Oleksiy Nazarchuk, a 25-year-old soldier from Volyn

Center “Unbreakable”

25-year-old defender Oleksii Nazarchuk from Volyn is undergoing rehabilitation in Lviv. The enemy ammunition fell a meter away from him. The debris cut through the soldier’s entire body, but did not touch vital organs. Oleksiy himself is sure: “an icon in his pocket and prayer” saved him.

The defender’s story was told at the Nezlamni National Rehabilitation Center.

The boy has been in the war since he was 18 years old. And from the beginning of the full-scale invasion, all the men in his family joined him: his father and four uncles. Together they served in the 100th separate TRO brigade and participated in battles in Donetsk region.

Oleksii was injured at the beginning of the winter of 2023.

“We sat in the building and watched the Russians with a thermal imager. At that moment, I hear something flying right towards us. There was nowhere to hide. I took the icon out of my pocket and began to pray. It flew a meter away from us. Debris cut my whole body, especially my leg,” he says.

The debris cut through the soldier’s entire body, but did not touch vital organs

Center “Unbreakable”

He remembers that it was his father’s birthday that day.

Medics managed to save the soldier’s leg, because the fragments, surprisingly, did not touch the bone. However, Oleksiy’s soft tissues, blood vessels, muscles and tendons were damaged.

After the wounds healed, the man was sent to Lviv for rehabilitation. From the first day, physical therapists started working with the defender.

“Specialists say that Oleksiy does not pay attention to pain and difficulties and makes maximum efforts for his speedy recovery. There are already first successes. The warrior started to get back on his feet little by little,” the center notes.

Motivates the defender on the way to recovery to return to his comrades and continue the fight together.

“I am not afraid to die for my Ukraine, I am not afraid at all. I love and respect her very much,” he says.

We will remind you that we previously wrote that the defender, who lost his right leg in the war, received severe multiple injuries to the lower left part of his body and survived two strokes, was able to stand on his surviving leg for the first time in 14 months.