{"id":190161,"date":"2022-07-07T15:01:37","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T12:01:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/volonter-bijtsem-tro"},"modified":"2022-07-22T00:17:22","modified_gmt":"2022-07-21T21:17:22","slug":"volonter-bijtsem-tro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/volonter-bijtsem-tro","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI didn\u2019t plan to wake up in occupation\u201d: how a volunteer from Enerhodar became a TRO battalion fighter"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Life is like a book. It can always be divided into chapters. It used to be like this: school, college, starting a career, starting a new family. Andriy Perepilka does not admit it. He prefers to break the established patterns.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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From childhood to Orange Revolution<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Many people in Enerhodar know him as a volunteer and public activist. And trusts him. Even passers-by on the streets gave him money to help the Ukrainian army. Now I am abroad, his wife and children are here too. And he is somewhere near Zaporizhzhia, in a territorial defense battalion. On the one hand, we are in different worlds. On the other, there are no people more connected than soldiers and civilians of the country they defend. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of 16, when his father passed away, he remained the only man in the family – with his mother, who worked as a teacher, and his younger sister. In the 1990s, it was very hard to live on a meager teacher\u2019s salary and a survivor’s pension. They did whatever they could. He graduated from school and went to Dnipropetrovsk University of Chemical Technology to study thermal power engineering. In 2000 he returned to Enerhodar to work at Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Andriy builds a career and eventually holds the highest position in operational work at the plant \u2013 shift leader of ZNPP operational subdivision, turbine department. In 2004, when society divided into \u201cOrange\u201d and \u201cpro-Yanukovych\u201d, he supported the revolutionaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI supported the Orange Revolution,\u201d he recalls. \u201cBut I wasn\u2019t very active – just spoke out against the Yanukovych regime. Back then, there was practically no Internet. We just met, sat, and talked\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He says that at that time he had high hopes that the revolution would bear fruit, the country would change, but he was disappointed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revolution of Dignity and the beginning of the war<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

He remembers his father, who quit his party membership, and his grandfather, who listened to the Voice of America radio, constantly spinning the transistor wheel and catching the waves where something was hissing incessantly: \u201cI was little and did not understand that the Americans were constantly switching to another wave so they would not be jammed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those were new hopes. People understood that the Revolution of Dignity had to be brought to a conclusion. Andriy believed that that was a chance for Ukraine. But in 2014 the war broke out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn OK, I saw a video of Russian helicopters flying like locusts. All this is filmed by a guy from the roof of the house, the video is accompanied by the music of a Ramstein-like band, and that guy is absolutely happy, he gets a kick out of it. I understood that was definitely a war,\u201d<\/em> he recalls, adding that he foresaw those events before the revolution: \u201cAfter Yanukovych fled, I felt that the rats were skulking and afraid. It was before the invasion of Crimea. I remember vacationing with my family on the peninsula. I wanted to see Russia across the Kerch Strait. I did. I took a photo and posted it on OK with an inscription \u201cEnemy Shore\u201d. For some reason, I could feel a threat all the time.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Volunteering<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

From talking to friends, Andrew moved on to action. A public law enforcement group \u201cPeople’s Defense\u201d was formed in Enerhodar. People actively joined it; most of them were employees of the nuclear power plant. They conducted trainings, together with the National Guard and the police kept watch at the checkpoint, which appeared at the entrance to the city. They collected and delivered parcels to the front – food, helmets, bulletproof vests, and necessary equipment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n