Friends From Childhood. Brothers in War.

At a fuel station in western Ukraine, three males of their late 20s, associates since childhood, slid into plastic chairs. Exhausted and anxious, they started to singIt was March 2022, three weeks after Russian forces invaded, and the boys had been on their technique to struggle. “Let It Be Chilly and Windy” was an outdated folks tune about weathering adversity that they’d sung as boys in a Ukrainian scouts group. In some way, it brightened the temper.

“In grief and bother, and the ocean of ​​darkness,” they sang, “I’ll defend you from misfortune with a cloak.”

Their names had been Artem, Dmytro and Roman. That they had met as boys within the scouts group known as Plast, within the western metropolis of Lviv, and cast bonds over mountain hikes, sunburns, scratched knees and bug bites.

Later, boyhood video games gave technique to faculty and girlfriends and nights out in Lviv.

Artem Dymyd was a traveler. Hooked on journey, he was by no means with out his parachute as he sky-dived and base-jumped around the globe. Pals known as him “Kurka,” Ukrainian for hen, due to the mop of curly hair he styled right into a mohawk as a youth. The nickname caught. When he received older and led a troop of youthful scouts, they known as themselves “the eggs.”

Dmytro Paschuk left faculty to affix the French Legion, searching for journey and a gentle revenue, then got here house to open a wine bar in Lviv. He was an entrepreneur full of massive concepts. However he was additionally deeply invested in seeing his small house village close to town thrive, and hoped to start out a small farm there.

Roman Lozynskyi studied political science in Lviv and received into native politics earlier than spending time as an intern within the Canadian Parliament. He was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament in 2019, and had began to separate his time between Kyiv, the capital, and Lviv.

None of them had been actually positive of the precise second they met. In some methods, it felt like they had been merely at all times collectively.

“Artem, Dmytro and I had been like three sides of the horizon: south, west and east,” Roman stated. Their pursuits and personalities had been very totally different, however, “Increase!” he stated, describing how they’d develop into quick associates.

Now struggle had reunited them. After the invasion, all three volunteered to combat for Ukraine. That they had simply returned from weeks in a navy coaching camp and had been on their technique to Lviv to gather drones, radios, meals and different gear donated to the unit they might serve in collectively.

In the event that they had been associates earlier than, Dmytro later stated, the struggle would quickly make them brothers.

The Conflict Begins

When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Artem was touring round Brazil, parachute in hand, in search of out locations to base leap. He boarded a flight house when he heard the information. He had volunteered for the navy in 2014 and fought within the east in opposition to Russia-backed separatists, so he rapidly rejoined.

Roman was in Kyiv. He had volunteered as a reservist weeks earlier as the potential for struggle grew to become extra actual. He made plans to move to a navy coaching base in central Ukraine, and known as Dmytro, who was in Lviv operating his wine bar and different companies.

Dmytro had additionally determined to volunteer and was already on his technique to the identical facility, after speaking to Artem about the perfect place to go for coaching.

Inside days, the three males met on the base in central Ukraine to signal contracts and begin coaching. And three lives that had diverged since their days within the scouts got here colliding again collectively.

Quickly, they had been headed east as a part of a specialist operations unit.

They discovered function and solidarity of their missions and a deep want to grab again management of Ukraine and finish the devastation of indiscriminate assaults on civilians. They usually had been pushed by their shared imaginative and prescient of their nation’s future — of a full-fledged democracy free from Russian interference.

Time and age had separated them, however the closeness they loved as boys returned in these early days of the struggle. They stayed up late speaking about life, religion and their hopes for the long run. Artem was extra direct, at all times in a rush, whereas Dmytro and Roman had been extra philosophical. In down occasions, they performed card video games and goofed round, singing patriotic songs, recording movies and taking selfies.

Roman, the lawmaker, shared updates about their exploits on social media, giving a behind-the-scenes have a look at their life at struggle.

Dmytro liked animals and by no means missed a possibility to pet the various canines they got here throughout on their missions. He had an uncanny capacity to make associates, and the babusyas, or Ukrainian grandmothers, they met within the east all liked him.

Artem at all times introduced his parachute with him and was decided to do a leap within the east; finally, he persuaded native authorities in Dnipro to let him sky-dive from a helicopter.

“I used to be with some loopy individuals at some loopy locations with Kurka,” Roman stated. “As a result of I’m not a threat taker in any respect.”

There was consolation but in addition worry in serving collectively, Roman defined, particularly after perilous missions within the spring of 2022, when their unit was targeted on operations behind enemy traces.

“We actually understood how excessive the danger was to lose somebody from our workforce,” Roman stated. However Roman took solace from the truth that Artem and Dmytro had earlier navy expertise.

That they had shut calls, together with as soon as when their camp was hit by shelling within the first weeks of the struggle.

“We talked loads about loss of life,” Roman stated. “After which, it occurred.”

A Somber Homecoming

Within the fourth month of the struggle, the three associates had been deployed close to the small village of Bila Krynytsya in Ukraine’s south. Combating had been fierce alongside the banks of the Inhulets River, which served as a entrance line between Russian and Ukrainian troops.

On the evening of June 18, Dmytro and Artem had been asleep of their camp — Roman was on a mission in a unique village — when a Russian shell got here hurtling towards them. The explosion rattled Dmytro from sleep. He heard screams and instinctively looked for his buddy.

“I couldn’t discover Kurka,” he stated, utilizing Artem’s nickname.

Artem’s accidents had been devastating. Shrapnel had ripped into his physique. One other buddy from the scouts, Vitya Kolya, who was a medic in the identical unit, tried to deal with Artem as they loaded him into the again of a pickup truck. Dmytro was on the wheel and sped to a subject hospital. Artem managed a remaining few phrases: “I’m alive.”

“For a minute, I couldn’t transfer in any respect, as if I forgot who I used to be or the place I used to be,” Dmytro stated.

“I used to be afraid, and I wished everybody to do one thing,” he stated. “I used to be giving orders to unload the automotive,” he stated, including, “I used to be afraid to be close to him.”

Artem died throughout the hour. He was 27.

“Kurka was a dude who wasn’t afraid of loss of life,” Dmytro later stated. “And he wasn’t simply saying that, he lived like that.”

Three days later, Roman and Dmytro traveled to Lviv to say goodbye to their buddy.

Tons of of present and former scouts lined the streets as his coffin was carried to the navy cemetery on Lviv’s outskirts. Roman, carrying navy fatigues, eyes heavy with grief, and Dmytro, in a white linen shirt with lengthy hair, joined the crowds. A navy band performed a funeral march.

On the grave, they helped unwrap Artem’s beloved parachute and unfold it gently over the open floor. Then his coffin was positioned on prime.

They joined family and friends members who shoveled the primary heaps of soil onto the wood field.

Whereas no official loss of life toll has been launched because the struggle started, U.S. officers estimated that by the top of August this yr, near 70,000 Ukrainian troopers had been killed and a few 100,000 to 120,000 wounded. The mounting losses are evident within the navy cemetery in Lviv, the place the once-empty hillside round Artem’s grave has seen a whole lot of burials since June 2022.

After the funeral, Roman and Dmytro sat on steps on the fringe of the graveyard. They spoke of Artem, of his zest for all times and his carefree angle.

“To be sincere, as an alternative of this unusual orchestra, it ought to be Metallica enjoying or Johnny Money,” Dmytro stated, pushing his shaggy hair again from his eyes. “We should always have pushed his coffin on pickup vehicles. It ought to be some type of celebration.”

Inside days, he and Roman headed again to struggle.

A Return to the Entrance

Roman and Dmytro made it by means of the summer time, conducting operations in southeastern Ukraine. That they had one another, and their comrades, and the mission was nonetheless clear as they fought to regain an space round Kherson from Russian forces.

Artem’s loss of life made them focus extra intently on their very own futures. Life decisions that they had been planning to place off till at after the struggle immediately grew to become extra pressing.

Each Roman and Dmytro, as an example, had deliberate to suggest to their long-term girlfriends, and it grew to become a operating joke about who would do it first. Within the uncertainty of the struggle, the choice was fraught.

In the event that they had been killed, they questioned, wouldn’t it be higher to have stayed merely a boyfriend to their companions, slightly than a fiancé or a husband? Or higher to have made the dedication of marriage?

Roman didn’t wish to put his life on maintain. So he proposed to his girlfriend, Svitlana, in September. A month later, Dmytro proposed to his girlfriend, Ganusya.

“We had been celebrating it within the struggle collectively,” Roman stated.

There have been different issues to have fun, as an autumn marketing campaign introduced main success for Ukrainian forces who wrested again territory within the east and south.

In November, Dmytro and Roman had been among the many first troopers to enter town of Kherson because it was liberated. Native civilians greeted them with hugs and flowers.

‘Why Was I Not With Them?’

The autumn turned to winter, their first at struggle. In December and January, Roman and Dmytro posted movies singing carols for Christmas and Orthodox Christmas from the entrance line. They marked a yr since Russia invaded.

In early March, they got a brief break. After a couple of days away, Dmytro returned to camp within the Kherson area, and Roman deliberate to comply with a number of days later. Roman was nonetheless in Kyiv on March 12 when one other soldier known as from down south.

The Russians had found their place and launched a kamikaze drone assault. Dmytro died immediately. Like Artem, he was 27.

The loss of life of one other shut buddy haunted Roman. “You actually don’t know why these items occur how they do, and why it occurred to Kurka or Dmytro,” he stated.

The three had been collectively on a regular basis within the struggle, Roman stated, however he was not current when each of his associates died.

“So why was I not with them?” Roman requested. “You suppose should you had been there, most likely you possibly can do one thing, save them or one thing.”

Once more, he traveled west to say goodbye to a buddy.

Dmytro had grown up within the small village of Khlivchany, about an hour from Lviv. That was the place he was buried in March as a rainstorm soaked the mourners, the drops mingling with their tears.

As his coffin was pushed to the church, native residents knelt within the puddles that pooled alongside the roadside. A blue and yellow flag, soaked by means of by the rain, clung to the wooden.

Roman stood alongside Dmytro’s fiancée, Ganusya, within the church. She and Dmytro had deliberate for an April wedding ceremony simply three weeks later.

“That is the best ache, I feel, if we begin to discuss how a lot stuff they might have achieved sooner or later,” Roman stated this summer time, reflecting on the lack of his associates.

He was sitting at a restaurant known as Respublika, considered one of Dmytro’s tasks that he had lengthy been planning to open. Dmytro died earlier than he had the prospect, however family and friends opened the cafe this spring.

A 12 months of Loss

On June 18, on the primary anniversary of Artem’s loss of life, Roman joined family and friends as they gathered as soon as extra in Lviv to recollect each Artem and Dmytro. There have been now two households mourning.

Roman arrived with a number of the troopers who had served of their unit and first stopped by Dmytro’s village to go to his grave and have lunch together with his household.

“It’s not your fault they died, however each time you’re feeling it,” Roman stated. “It’s very troublesome to look into their eyes. It’s troublesome to know what to say.”

At Dmytro’s childhood house, his mom and grandmother set out a diffusion of meals. Close by, a small desk held trinkets from Dmytro’s life: pictures, a navy award and a medal from a 24-hour in a single day run he had achieved with Roman.

Oksana Paschuk, Dmytro’s mom, instructed the boys to cease being well mannered and eat. Her grief was nonetheless uncooked, simply weeks after Dmytro’s loss of life and tears had been seen in her eyes. However she additionally smiled at tales about him that she hadn’t heard earlier than.

“The toughest factor for me is to go to sleep,” Oksana stated, “When there’s nothing however silence and also you’re pondering, ‘He’s gone.’”

After a whole lot of days of frontline fight, Roman returned to his work in Parliament this summer time, although he stays a part of the navy. He’s decided that his associates’ lives be celebrated.

“You are feeling this sense of injustice — why did it occur to them?” Roman requested. “And also you’ll by no means get solutions to this query.”

Oleksandra Mykolyshyn, Daria Mitiuk and Sofiya Harbuziuk contributed reporting.

Produced by Grey Beltran and Mona Boshnaq.

Audio produced by Parin Behrooz.