"We are defending our land, our streets where we were born and raised."
Former tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky was on a family vacation when the war broke out. For him, there was one only thing to do: enlist in the Ukrainian army.
Former tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky was on a family vacation when the war broke out. For him, there was one only thing to do: enlist in the Ukrainian army.
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00:00Many of the Ukrainians are standing up because if they don't stand up, there's no future in
00:05history for their kids. And I would love my kids to have a country to come back to.
00:18I was scared so I was looking for information where they hid and where they strike and what
00:23they do because I had my father, my mother and my brother and his family in Kyiv. I didn't sleep
00:28much, maybe two or one hour a day. I couldn't eat much because, you know, it absorbs you.
00:41It was tough. I remember for me the biggest issue was that, you know, I think on the second day or
00:47on the first day of war, my wife finally got me to get something to eat. So we went downstairs to
00:53the lobby restaurant of our hotel and there was a group of six or seven Russians who came in
01:00and they were having, you know, time of their life, laughing,
01:03even talking about the conflict, they were laughing.
01:11My wife tried to stop me. I didn't tell my kids, I just tell my kids that I'm leaving,
01:14they'll be right back. I didn't have the courage to tell them that I'm going, you know,
01:18and I'm not sure when they come back. But my wife knew. We didn't talk to her about it directly,
01:23but she had the feeling from the day one that, you know, this might happen and she was trying
01:26to ask me a direct question and I couldn't give her a direct answer because I never lied to my
01:31wife and I didn't want to start, you know, by such a big thing. But it was a tough decision.
01:35I am regretting it and I would regret it either way. If I would stay home, I would regret the
01:40decision and I would feel guilt because sultans of Ukrainian fathers, you know, saying goodbye to
01:47their daughters and wives and send them to the Western part and they stay behind and then defend.
01:58I'm doing patrolling, two hours over six hours, so two hours patrolling, six hours rest.
02:03In between, we drive through the city, we try to facilitate and accommodate some requests.
02:09Everything we can do to help the people of Kyiv to feel a bit better, to make their life easier.
02:16Russia is shelling Kyiv, some parts of it. Every day, there's something coming in. Right now,
02:21we have an airstrike alarm. We hope that, you know, nothing will fly in. For him, never is
02:27enough. He wants to restore Soviet Union. So, if he wants to restore Soviet Union, Ukraine is just
02:32the first step for it. And I just want the world to understand or especially Europe to understand
02:36that if Ukraine falls, then the small European countries are next on the menu.
02:55Maybe it is important for the prominent figures to join ranks, but on the other hand, we're just
03:01as human beings as anybody else. But I also feel proud of the nation and the people of Ukraine,
03:06how the way they resist, as it's said, the second or third largest and best armies in the world.
03:15You know, they don't fail, they don't move back. We're asking for only one thing, is to close the
03:20sky above Ukraine, so the rockets wouldn't shell the cities and they would not be able to bomb
03:25our cities. On the ground, they have no morale. They are attackers, they're invaders. The people
03:31don't want them here. And we, for the difference, we are defending our own country, we're defending
03:36our land, we're defending our streets where we were born and raised.