Four years have passed unnoticed. And today, when I look back, I can’t believe that the whole country, our family, and you have been in the fully-fledged war for four years. It was quite recently, when my colleague Ruslan’s night call woke me up with one word: “Begun!”. I didn’t ask what exactly, because the inevitable happened, which many of us knew about in the depths of our subconscious, but consciously drove away this thought.

Although man is a strange creature. It’s funny to even remember now — at some point I thought that the muscovites had ruined my current plans for this day, because on this day I was supposed to complete the medical examination for the right to own and use firearms. That is, although I did not believe in their attack on Ukraine, I was still preparing for something.

Returning to the morning of February 24, Natalia quickly mastered this news. When I intended to wake you up immediately, she said: “Let him sleep a little longer. It won’t change anything.”

Then you remember our futile attempts to first drive to the military registration and enlistment office — there were traffic jams everywhere. Then we abandoned the car somewhere near the Shuliavka metro station and walked along Beresteyskyi Avenue, which turned into a continuous traffic jam in the direction of Zhytomyr.

Around and inside the military registration and enlistment office on Salyutnaya Street, we were met by a huge crowd of men and complete helpless commotion. You left a statement there, but without any consequences…

And then it was a different story — night shooting on our street, a line for weapons at the school on the former Pugacheva Street, the 207th Battalion of the TRO…

Could history have gone differently? Could we have had a different choice? — History knows no conditionals.

But we can confess ourselves whether we regret our choice or not. I can’t say for you — you are an independent adult. Natalia and I have discussed this many times and have come to the common opinion that we acted as we should have. And with all the abundance of choices, we had no choice — we stayed and remain in our country. I think you are of the same opinion.

Do what have to do, and things will happen as they will.

In Ukrainian

Чотири роки по тому — лист до сина

Four years later — a letter to son was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

In 2024, Lanet (Kyiv, Ukraine), a fixed-line Internet provider, installed uninterruptible power supply on its equipment, thereby ensuring Internet access during power outages, which regularly occurred as a result of orc (rf) attacks on Ukraine’s power system.

That same year, on the company’s advice, I installed a small uninterruptible power supply for my home router and have had virtually no internet outages since then.

But at the end of 2025, the situation suddenly changed — the Internet at our address began to stop immediately after the electricity was turned off.

Yesterday, January 23, 2026, I contacted the company to explain the situation and request that the service be restored.

The day after my appeal about the lack of uninterrupted internet in my home, on Saturday, January 24, 2026, after another massive night attack by orcs (rf) on Kyiv, there was another massive emergency power outage in the city.

But this time the internet connection in my home had already been working for several hours!

That is, Lanet responded in a timely manner and managed to take certain measures to fix our service delivery in our branch.

🙏 Many thanks to the company and its employees! This is how we will win! ✊

In Ukrainian

Різні відтінки стійкості

Different shades of resilience was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

· Intro
· Military experience
· Return to business
· Will Ukraine win this war?
· Ukrainian version

Intro

John Pienaar:

Ivan, welcome to the program. Really appreciate you making time to talk to me. Can I just start by asking you about you? You were a business entrepreneur until the invasion came, and that changed your plans and it changed your life.

Ivan Matveichenko:

Absolutely. Well, first of all, thank you for having me, John. Yes. So I started out my career in a corporate setting and was a finance executive at IBM across different former CIS countries. I worked in Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, and during my time at IBM I was covering also other countries of the former Soviet Union. Then, shortly, maybe like two years before the war, I left my corporate job to start my own company and was working on that very actively — raising funds, setting up the business. And just when I was about to launch my company, it was a real estate development company and we were about to break ground on our first project, the war started, and I had to join the army then.

John Pienaar:

Right. So that is a very drastic change of direction in your life and many in Ukraine would have experienced that sort of extraordinary turnaround in their lives. So you went from real estate development eventually to your important work in the defense sector of Ukraine. But in the meantime, of course, after the invasion, you found yourself in uniform. You were in the military.

Could you tell me a bit about your military experience, your battlefield and combat experience in particular?

Military experience

Ivan Matveichenko:

Sure. Well, I think maybe one week nobody knew if invasion would happen or not. There were different conflicting messages from, I guess, our intelligence community and western intelligence community which was more — sort of looking back at it — more spot-on on when and how things were going to unfold. But I think one week or maybe like three–four days before the invasion there was this sense that inevitably something would happen.

At the time I lived in Kyiv with my family — with my wife and two kids. So, what we decided to do is, two days before the invasion happened, and obviously we did not know when and if it would happen at all, I took my wife and kids and brought them to Western Ukraine, closer to the border with Europe. And when the war started, I drove them to the border and sent them over to Poland to our friends. So I was left alone in Ukraine at that point without wife and kids and I joined the army. I believe I tried to join on 1st of March 2022 — so it was the second week of the invasion.

It was pretty chaotic back then. A recruitment officer just got my number and told me that they didn’t need volunteers at the moment, all positions were filled. But then two weeks later I got a call from a recruitment officer and was asked to come and sign papers and everything. That is how I joined the armed forces.

My first months I was stationed locally in Western Ukraine in one of the reserve companies. We were supposed to get training I believe back then, but again, because everything was so chaotic and there were no instructors, we were pretty much left on our own. Luckily, we had many Ukrainian veterans who had been fighting since 2014, who trained us. And also my good friend — a US guy, former marine — volunteered and came from the US to Ukraine to train my company when we were in that reserve company.

One month forward, from that reserve company I was assigned to the 10th Mountain Assault Brigade, which was and still is one of the most battle-hardened assault units in the Ukrainian army. I spent two weeks in training at their base in Western Ukraine and then was sent straight to Bakhmut. Not to the city itself — because back then it was summer of 2022, the fights were going on in the vicinity of the city — and that’s where I spent pretty much all of my combat time in the Bakhmut defensive campaign: Bakhmut, Soledar, and that entire agglomeration.

John Pienaar:

Right. So you fought on the front line with your units, you saw combat, and you were twice wounded, injured in action. Can you tell me a little about that?

Ivan Matveichenko:

Sure. I was in the infantry, a rifleman. Unfortunately — or maybe fortunately, I don’t know — I did not have any military training prior to joining the army. In Ukraine, actually army service is mandatory even before the war. Everybody has to go and serve in the army, and some of the guys who graduate from that service end up being sergeants, some even officers if they decide to spend more time than the mandatory one year.

I was recruited as a simple infantryman. So I was right at the line of contact, seeing all the action and participating very actively. Now, the average lifespan of a rifleman in Ukraine, in particular on the main offensive effort of the enemy — which was Bakhmut at the time — is not very long, frankly. Luckily, I was at the line of contact for seven months.

It does not mean that I was there repelling assaults every single day, because usually it works like this: you go for two weeks on combat positions, spend there two weeks, then go back for a week, take a rest, and then again and again. Sometimes it’s just three days, sometimes two weeks with supplies — food and water — that end up lasting a month and a half. Every single time we went in, we were shelled with artillery very heavily. Not as much with drones back then because it was 2022–2023. There were occasional reconnaissance drones, mostly for recon and artillery correction. Not as many bombers or FPV drones, but heavy artillery shelling, lots of aviation in the Bakhmut direction, and also lots of gun action too.

John Pienaar:

A constant danger at the front line, occasional respite as you step back, but you were twice a victim of concussion, right?

Ivan Matveichenko:

Yes. The first concussion I got was pretty mild. I just spent a week at the Company’s Medical Point — basically two medical professionals, about 5 km away from the front line. I spent a week there recovering, nothing too crazy. But that was shell shock from an explosion. My left eardrum got fractured because of that shock — similar to being punched in the head really strongly.

Return to business

John Pienaar:

Ivan, you’ve seen your share of action. Tell me how that experience there on the front line influenced, maybe inspired, the work you ended up doing in making the arms industry of Ukraine more effective and efficient. How did your experience turn into the work you’re doing?

Ivan Matveichenko:

Well, I was actually in hospital recovering from my third concussion. That was the most severe one. I spent about a month there. With little to do, I was playing on my phone, reading books. I reached out to a British gentleman, Brooks Newark — former minister and senior banker. We started talking about Ukraine, the conflict, his humanitarian work. He helped evacuate more than 35,000 refugees from the combat zone to safety.

Because of our similar backgrounds in business, the conversation shifted to defense tech. At first we thought about setting up a venture capital firm investing in Ukrainian defense tech companies. But after much research we found that beyond capital, Ukrainian companies need Western-standard know-how in building companies that would be attractive to investors. Instead of just investing, we decided to roll up our sleeves and help directly. That’s how Trypillian was started.

So we are not just a service company, we also develop hardware and software. We’re about to announce our first family of tactical UAVs. But a big part is the service component, because in Ukraine almost anyone knows how to pilot a drone and understand UAV warfare tactics. In the West, unfortunately, it’s different. We try to be the bridge — exporting Ukrainian know-how and training foreign armed forces in modern warfare.

John Pienaar:

Can you give me an example of an innovation that your company has come up with that’s become important for Ukraine’s fighting capability?

Ivan Matveichenko:

I’ll take a step back. Ukraine has a vibrant startup scene, brilliant entrepreneurs and engineers developing excellent products. In terms of product innovation, I think we beat Russia every single time. We come up with something new faster and better. But in scaling that innovation, mass-producing it affordably, we are behind. Russia is building massive Shahed factories; we’re still struggling to scale deep-strike drones.

John Pienaar:

Why is Ukraine so much better at inventing drones than Russia is?

Ivan Matveichenko:

Two components:

1. Historically, during Soviet times, Ukraine was home to many defense tech companies — legacy design bureaus making missiles and rockets were located here. So we inherited huge talent.
2. We’re fighting for survival. That makes a huge difference. When you fight to protect your loved ones, you have to think fast, iterate, and innovate. Otherwise you’re dead.

Will Ukraine win this war?

John Pienaar:

Do you believe you can win this war?

Ivan Matveichenko:

It depends on what you call winning. Russia is much bigger and invaded to erase our identity, install a puppet regime. We defended ourselves, and it’s clear Ukraine will remain an independent, Western-oriented country.

At first, victory meant just defending Kyiv. Later, successes near Kyiv and Kherson made us think about retaking Crimea, Donetsk, Luhansk — restoring 1991 borders. At this moment, in the next couple of years, that seems unrealistic. But we won’t give up; it may eventually be solved diplomatically. In defending democracy, identity, and independence — we’ve already won, and it will stay this way.

John Pienaar:

So, the war is a battle for national survival and you believe you will survive. Just lastly, we’re waiting for news of America’s support, for your friends in Europe to guarantee Ukraine’s security in the longer term as and when peace comes. Do you trust President Trump as an ally, America as an important ally and guarantor of security?

Ivan Matveichenko:

We have to trust our allies. Trust works both ways — if you don’t trust someone, they don’t trust you back. The only way to overcome this is to give that initial credit of trust. If we cannot rely on our allies, then we’re in a very tough spot. So yes, I trust President Trump. Ultimately he’s trying to do what is best. Of course he has other internal problems and a broader vision — Russia, China, North Korea, the world setup. But we have to trust allies. Hopefully President Trump will come to the same conclusion Ukraine and many European allies have: Russia cannot be trusted.

John Pienaar:

Good to talk to you. Thank you so much for joining me.

Ivan Matveichenko:

Thank you very much. Thank you, John. Wish you well.

Ukrainian version

Від нерухомості до руху війни: трансформація бізнесу

From real estate to real war: transformation of business was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Consider this post an advertisement — that is, an advertisement of our resilience on the third anniversary of the beginning of the great war of moskovyts against Ukraine:

• We have no windows,
• But we have an unbreakable will
• 4 times our windows were broken, (from the author — as a result of rocket attacks on Lukyanivka)
• 4 times we recovered

WE ARE WORKING!

Brewsell cafe, almost right next to the Lukyanivka metro station, Kyiv, Ukraine, February 24, 2025

Related materials

• A touch to our history — to understand
• Ukrainian civil society in war
• Sermon on the Mount about Ukraine
• Evolution of the nation: a view from the Ukrainian Wikipedia during the war
• Folk version of the Ukrainian anthem from the Chornomorets Cossacks, resettled in the Kuban

Ukrainian version

Ми працюємо!

We are working! was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

I said above “it’s just beginning” not for the figure of speech. Please take your time, focus and read carefully the article “Where J.D. Vance Gets His Weird, Terrifying Techno-Authoritarian Ideas | The New Republic”. It was written in the past 2024, before the elections in the States. What the Trump administration is doing now (dismantling US state institutions, intimidating democratic governments of allies, etc.) exactly corresponds to the the pre-drawn plans of his team, and is in no way a chaotic and awkward improvisation of some stupid guys. Also, some clarifications are set out here in my dialogue with ChatGPT.

It is important for us to realize that that, it seems, putin’s russia is ideologically closer to the Trump government and team than Europe and Ukraine. If you put all these together, then the statements and actions of the Trump team look consistent and fit into a certain coherent logic of their ideology.

That’s why I said that everything is just beginning. This is a long-term struggle. Awareness of the real threats as well as counteractions planning and implementing in advance are what Europe needs now. And Ukraine is part of Europe. We will win. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Europe! ✊

Ukrainian version

Все тільки починається

Everything is just beginning was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The video was originally posted on 2024–12–06 on Instagram, although the recording was made earlier — somewhere in late summer — early autumn 2024.

That night, Nicholas laid out gifts, while the Armed Forces of Ukraine protected the lives and dreams of little polite Ukrainians, protected them from enemy attacks 🙏🏻

Such an important saint for us, the patron saint of travelers, sailors, all the disadvantaged, the one in whose honor the city of Mykolaiv and many churches and cathedrals are named 💙💛

Such an important day for us, to once again remember every defender who chose the path in the army, like our friend Glib — an artist and volunteer fighter in the 3rd Assault Brigade 🙏🏻

On Andriyivski slopes Andriy Dutko and Glib Bondarenko perform a folk version of the Ukrainian anthem from the Chornomorets (Black Sea) Cossacks, resettled in the Kuban 🎶

The flow of our project continues! — te.chi.ya

Text of the Anthem

Ukraine is not dead yet, neither glory nor will
Fate will still smile on us, young brothers

Our enemies will perish like dew in the sun
We will also reign, brothers on our side

Yuri Kotsiubaylo [1] and Roman Ratushny [2]
From the grave they call us to a desperate battle

We will lay down our soul and body for our freedom
We will also prove that we are also brothers of the Cossack lineage

References

1. Roman Ratushnyi — Wikipedia
2. Dmytro Kotsiubailo — Wikipedia

Ukrainian text

Народний варіянт українського Славеня від Козаків Чорноморців, переселених на Кубань

Folk version of the Ukrainian anthem from the Chornomorets Cossacks, resettled in the Kuban was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

America and the whole world was shocked by the recent violent attack on a candidate for the President of the United States Donald Trump (DT) and although I really hope that he is doing well and going to be all right.

I have a few questions to him first of all. Why did his security guards kill the shooter? Why didn’t they try to negotiate with him? Why didn’t they try to make some kind of peace agreement?

We all seen that in fact he (killer) shot his (DT) ear but no one knows did he (killer) really wanted the whole ear, maybe just a part of it. So, I really think that he (DT) should have given him (killer) a piece of his (DT) ear to avoid the big shooting.

Do I sound extremely stupid? Exactly!

And that’s how you sound to Ukrainians when you offer us to negotiate with a killer. So as I said I really hope that Mr Donald Trump will be all right. And I also hope that Mr Donald Trump now has a better understanding of feeling or how does it feel when someone is trying to kill you and what your reaction and answer should be.

Ukrainian version

Угода з кілером

Agreement with a killer was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

This short story caught me off guard from the past.

Some days ago, I needed to contact my university colleague (National Aviation University — NAU, Kyiv) Natalia on business. The last time we saw each other before the war somewhere in 2021.

I found her Telegram account and there I discovered a message sent to me that I had not read before, dated March 11, 2022. It was the beginning of the third week of the large-scale Russian war against Ukraine.

Somehow this message escaped my attention at the time. Now I understand why — at that time, Glib (my son) and I received weapons after standing in a hugely long line for a day and a half, and were already at our combat position in Kyiv. At that time, everyone was focused on the gloomy news, which poured in powerful streams from all possible sources. Most likely, this message was covered by the wave of this turbulent information flow. And only chance led me to this message almost two years later.

I expose the text of this story below without corrections. Only in one place I close the name of a specific person mentioned by Natalia. So, the story from March 11, 2022:

“Good day. How is Yevgeny? What about him and his relatives? Part of my relatives got out from Bucha yesterday (unfortunately, the husband was left there for the time being) — they will never forget such horror…. got lost in some other town on the way and stopped at the place where the battle had just taken place…. Corpses, death, shot cars with people in large numbers, children’s things in blood and smoke, at the checkpoint the Russian soldier said that tomorrow we will do the same with Kyiv… all this was seen by the children…. The entire evacuation bus arrived at the station yesterday in silence…. Some could not even drink, eat or speak for several hours…. Almost all of them left Kyiv…. I don’t know any more information about one teacher from NAU — Evgeny knows her — there is no connection with (here the surname and first name of the person — author’s note) — if there is an opportunity, ask if he knows something…. Thank you in advance for the information, Natasha”

That’s all. This is in order not to forget. And when someone says that this is putin’s war, and the russians have nothing to do with it, then remember the russian orc (ohlos) as though fuddled by the feeling of human blood and his words: “tomorrow we will do the same to Kyiv.” When you see shot civilian cars with people in them and bloody children’s things, it’s not about battle and military success — it’s about massacre…

This must not be forgotten and cannot be forgotten. Neither in Ukraine, nor in Europe, nor in the world.

As long as Ukraine resists Russia’s armed aggression, there is no war in Europe. When Ukraine wins, there will never be a war in Europe. At all. By helping Ukraine, you are helping yourself.

In Ukrainian

Тіні минулого не дають заблукати дорогою в майбутнє

The shadows of the past do not allow to get lost on the road to the future was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Everyone : we need to improve the life of the military!

Army : That’s right! Immediately start a logbook for improving the lives of the military!

All : But you don’t understand, we need real changes!

Army : Yes, exactly! Create record cards of real changes and enter them in the logbook of improvements.

All : What a crap! It doesn’t work like that!

Army : Immediately conduct an official investigation to determine why life improvement logbooks are not improving lives and record cards of real changes are not changing the lives of the military. The guilty will be punished, the others will be rewarded.

The author is unknown. I spied this in the military chat.

Ukrainian version

Військовий гумор

Military humor was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Having become one of the most contaminated countries in the world, Ukraine faces enormous challenges in clearing its territory from mines and unexploded ordnance (UXO). The actual size of the territory, which requires clearing is still very difficult to access as fighting is still ongoing. Around 18% of Ukraine’s territory remains under occupation at the time of writing (April 2023). To date the Kharkiv and Kherson regions remain the most contaminated regions of all the liberated territories, as russian forces had been present there for a longer period of time.

Also, the nature of challenges in demining is different to the pre-Feb 2022 situation for the following reasons:

1. much heavier and longer fighting;
2. the range and dispersal of the explosive ordnance is much greater;
3. the size of potentially contaminated territories is 10 times larger.

Deliberate Mining

President Zelensky promised that the indiscriminate use of explosive ordnance will be among the charges put forward against russia in international tribunals. Even after they have been forced out of the areas they occupied, russians are infamously creative in laying booby-traps: they plant victimactivated devices on animals, dead-bodies, double and even triple mine-traps on the roads, fields and forests.

It has been observed that the russians have also deliberately targeted farming areas and agricultural land for contamination to render it impossible to use for economic activity. As a result of russia’s invasion, nearly five million hectares (50,000 square km) of agricultural land are currently unsuitable for use in Ukraine due to mines, contamination with explosive ordnance or armed hostilities. Some estimate that land area of grain crops could be reduced by 45% after two years of war.

Mines and other UXO [2] are intensely poisonous for the environment: they damage soil as fragmented explosives release heavy metals like chrome, zinc, iron, copper, mercury; later these enter groundwaters and contaminate the Dniester, Dnipro and Seversky Donets rivers, thus seriously affecting water safety. Animal-activated mines cause forest fires with massive migration of wild life a devasted biodiversity. Almost 44% of nature preservations and natural parks of Ukraine (around 900) are under occupation now or on the territory of active fighting. 30 000 sq.km of forestry has been affected by the war and will be subject to clearance inspection as well.

The requirements for clearance of anchored and floating sea mines in the Black Sea, as well as on the river banks of the Dnipro, Dniester and Seversky Donets rivers are yet to be assessed, but without such assessment and subsequent clearance, there will be no return to normal navigation and the safe use of harbors and commercial seaports will be very heavily circumscribed, if not impossible.

Reference

1. Walking on Fire: Demining in Ukraine. Iuliia Osmolovska, Director, GLOBSEC Kyiv Office, GLOBSEC 2023
2. Ammo Manual for Humanitarian Demining, GICHD, 2022. Web-republishing by National Ecological Centre of Ukraine https://protw.github.io/demining/

Ukrainian version

Навмисне мінування — складова екоциду в Україні

Deliberate Mining —  Component of Ecocide in Ukraine was originally published in War notes on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.