{"id":307358,"date":"2024-08-20T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-08-20T06:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/holosy-rehioniv-20-08"},"modified":"2024-08-20T10:30:10","modified_gmt":"2024-08-20T07:30:10","slug":"holosy-rehioniv-20-08","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uacrisis.org\/en\/holosy-rehioniv-20-08","title":{"rendered":"An artist who became a paramedic: \u201cA fighter\u2019s survival depends on timely assistance\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“If you get to the medevac, we’ll help you out, you’re a fighter, everything will be Ukraine,” says volunteer and paramedic Yevhenia Kim. Before the full-scale invasion, the religious scholar and artist had other concerns. Now the war has pushed creativity out of her life, but filled it with even more miracles. It\u2019s a miracle to remain human in inhumane conditions and live amid death. Apparently, this is how true artists are tested… In Ukraine, many of them have changed exhibitions to evacuation routes, searching for medicine and equipment for the army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before the full-scale war, Yevhenia Kim had the life of her dreams \u2013traveling, international performances, and bohemian lifestyle. She says it was a completely different life, not like today: \u201cI had a lot of hobbies, did shooting sports, and went dancing. I had my own art studio, we painted icons, participated in exhibitions, were presented on international markets. I loved traveling. I was committed to my work, and I also liked to go to some country for a few weeks, rent a car, just drive around, talk to people, learn about new cultures, because I\u2019m a religious scholar, I\u2019ve always been interested in inner life and worldview.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yevhenia Kim<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Yevhenia says she\u2019s very demanding of herself, so when the big war broke out, her artistic work ended. She tried to paint again, but the emotions became completely different. She had been helping the military since 2014, but she didn\u2019t consider it volunteering then. However, on February 24, 2022, like millions of other Ukrainians, she had to make a choice:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cApparently, on February 24, 2022, everyone who didn\u2019t join the Armed Forces became a volunteer. It was my fate, too, because I had to decide what to do: run away or meet it with dignity? And that’s how it all happened.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the beginning of the big war, the artist took up evacuation. She helped to evacuate women and children from Mykolayiv, which was half-encircled in late February. “In the morning, we would take one group along the Odesa highway to the border with Moldova and returned home. Two or three hours of sleep \u2013 and a new evacuation,” Yevhenia says. “At some point, I realized that it all worked (evacuation – ed.), everyone drove everyone, everything was fine, everything was good, and I have a brother there (at the front – ed.) and I had to take him some socks.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her brother Petro is a serviceman of the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade “Edelweiss”. The unit fought the enemy in the Kyiv region. They had to get to the tank unit through unknown roads and fields, where there had been fighting just days before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But of course, the main thing was not the socks, the main thing was, unfortunately and horrifyingly, at least to say goodbye. I stopped and understood what I needed, because I can’t leave the country, because I don’t want to leave, and there\u2019s a very high chance that I\u2019ll stay here in this land. And he\u2019ll stay there. Because I wasn’t sure that we would survive, I thought that we were done for. And I was going to say goodbye,” the woman recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This is how the military volunteer Yevhenia Kim\u2019s story began. She was heading from the northern front, following her brother’s unit, to the Donetsk region. Apart from her brother, the volunteer has two sons at the front, her ex-husband, his brother and his wife. During the trips, she managed to meet other military units that also needed help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It works like this \u2013 for example, your brother is fighting there, he says: “Zhenya, we need to find somewhere, maybe you can help, I know you have a lot of friends.” You start looking for something. Then you get a call from a friend, who also joined the army, and he also needs something. You go there, give everything, they run up to you and say: “Listen, we need this and that. That\u2019s how it happens,” says the volunteer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The woman says that when the first emotions caused by the beginning of the full-scale war subsided and she managed to organize various aid to the units, she was faced with a question \u2013 how to further develop in volunteerism: “This is a development, a volunteer develops, it is also a profession. If in the first weeks we ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, not knowing where to fit in and what to do, now we develop, learn, try to master another profession, in my case it’s a paramedic.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yevhenia’s friend was wounded in the battle. The fighters couldn\u2019t be evacuated and taken to the hospital in time. This was an impetus for a new area in the volunteer’s work \u2013 searching for and delivering evacuation vehicles and paramedics to the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There\u2019s simply not enough help there. And a fighter\u2019s survival depends on timely assistance. That’s why it’s very important, we need ambulances and a lot of them, we need teams, we need to help,” says the artist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over two and a half years of military volunteering, the number of units assisted by the foundation team and Yevhenia has expanded. It all started with the delivery of ambulances to Donbas. The units are moving, and the project is expanding along with that, says the volunteer. Today, through a Swedish foundation with which Yevhenia cooperates, about 60 vehicles have been delivered to the front and used to evacuate the wounded. They are used in the Donetsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson sectors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, it was not enough for the volunteer to be involved in the logistics of evacuation vehicles and head the project \u2013 she personally joined the evacuation of the wounded at the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n