Doonbeg student, Oran McInerney, has just returned to Ireland after a summer working as an unarmed, medical volunteer with Front Line Medics, a group that stabilises and evacuates injured Ukrainian soldiers from the frontline.
While in Ukraine, McInerney befriended 20-year-old Dubliner, Alex Ryzhuk, who was serving as a volunteer with the Ukrainian military. He last met Mr Ryzhuk just four days before the Ryzhuk was reported missing, presumed dead.
“Alex was fighting, so his situation was very different from mine. He was 20 years old, his mother and father are both from Ukraine. Alex went over there when he was 18 years old and he has been fighting there for the past two years or so, flying drones and doing a lot of crazy stuff. His stories would leave you speechless,” McInerney says.
“I met him for coffee, we took some pictures and he asked me for some medical supplies. We instantly got on. Some of the Americans who were with me were wondering why we got on so well, were we friends before this. And I was like, no, we’re Irish. If you meet another Irish person abroad, he is your friend.
“But he [Alex] had asked me for medical supplies, so I met up with him again with the supplies on a Wednesday or a Thursday. He went out on a mission a few days later and unfortunately he was killed on that mission.
“He is officially down as missing but I have heard from his friends that he was killed. He paid the ultimate price for European freedom. He was an amazing person, a great guy. It is so unfortunate but the reality is that a lot of people are dying out there,” McInerney says.
After his death, Ryzhuk was mocked by pro-Russian elements on a number of Telegram channels which list the names and identities of foreigners in Ukraine.
McInerney’s personal details, including pictures of him and his home address in Ireland, were also published on these channels, many of which have more than 45,000 members.
“It was surreal. There are a lot of pro-Russian people out there, as well as a lot of bots and people who the Russian government are essentially paying to put out a lot of pro-Russian stuff,” he says.
“The idea is that they share your information and they hope that you get killed in Ukraine. If you get killed, they put up another post mocking you. They say, ‘look at Oran, he came to Ukraine and he is dead now’.
“The whole point of that is to stop other people from coming to Ukraine and helping. Basically, ‘don’t come over here or you will die’. Unfortunately it is working, you see a lot of pro-Russian stuff in Ireland on Twitter pages that are fake. You can’t believe anything you read on it.
“But it was pretty scary. It doesn’t matter where you are from or what you are doing in Ukraine, you could be put up on that page.
“I can shrug it off, but you do wonder will these people show up at your house, will they show up to your family? Will it come back to haunt you.”
This summer was McInerney’s third visit to Ukraine over the past two years. Living in a bunker just 15km from the frontline, he was constantly in danger during his three month medical mission.
His closest brush with death took place on a previous visit to Ukraine, however. He narrowly avoided being killed when a cluster munition detonated just behind his position while he was working with the Stop the War organisation.
“The cluster fell nearly on my head. Cluster munitions shoot forward, and this bomb missed our group by maybe 200m. The only reason that he [the Russian pilot] didn’t hit us was that he pushed the button a fraction of a second too late,” he says.
“We didn’t see the fighter plane, it was travelling too fast. We were on a firing range at the time so we were used to all of these explosions around us. We all just ran. I remember just running through a forest and then being evacuated. It was insane.
“The unit we were training at the time, unfortunately, I got word that a lot of them have been killed and wounded. The casualty rate is horrific at the moment, and you just don’t hear about it over here [in Ireland].”
According to McInerney, the Ukrainian people are tired of this conflict, but they have no choice but to continue.
“I remember talking to one of our medics and asking her what she wanted to do when the war is finished. She said that the first thing that she wants to do is to go to the graveyard and visit her friends. That really put it all into perspective for me,” he says.
“The people over there are absolutely resolute that Ukraine should be independent, they have their own democracy, their own culture and freedom. There is no real explanation for what Russia is doing.
“The Ukrainians are tired of the war, but more than that, they don’t want to be taken over by Russia. I don’t think this war is going to end any time soon.”
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