"I can't do otherwise": the life of a Ukrainian soldier before his execution in captivity

Source: Slidstvo Info
Author: Yulia Khimerik

In the center of the village of Lukashivka in the Chernihiv region stands the Church of the Ascension, which was destroyed during the fighting. Last March, the occupiers brought 23-year-old Ukrainian soldier Vadym Nazarov here to be executed. The Russians cold-bloodedly shot the unarmed young man, whose hands were tied, in front of a local teenager. Vadym Nazarov had been fighting for Ukraine since he was 18 and gave his life for his country.


Journalists from “Slidstvo.Info” spoke with Anastasia, the wife of the slain Vadym Nazarov, who spoke about the Ukrainian defender. 

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Vadym and Anastasia met online in 2017 and communicated for a long time while he was serving in the military. After a while, he took leave and came to visit her to meet her parents. And on New Year’s Eve, he proposed. The couple didn’t have a lavish wedding with a dress and a suit—they got married in 2018.

“It was hard, of course, because of the great distance: he was there (in Donetsk Oblast, — ed.), and I was in Sumy Oblast. Especially since he was in the ATO zone, which made it even harder because we didn’t know what to expect. He said, ‘I could be gone at any moment. You have to be ready for that,’” Anastasia recalls.

The young woman believed that everything would be okay.

  Vadym Nazarov went to war as soon as he turned 18—in 2016. It was his first contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“He said, ‘I can’t just sit at home watching what’s happening in the country while young men, my friends, are dying. I can’t just sit here and calmly watch what’s happening. I have to help my country,”” recalls the wife of the slain soldier, Anastasia Nazarova.

Vadym was assigned to the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade and fought in the ATO and OOS (Joint Forces Operation, which lasted from 2018 to 2022) zones until 2019. He was stationed at all the hotspots at the time—Maryanka, Volnovakha, and Soledar.

“It was emotionally difficult for him. When he came home, he had a hard time adjusting. He had all kinds of nightmares; he would wake up, and sometimes he’d be startled while sleeping, but he never talked about any of it. He’d say, ‘I’m sorry, but let’s leave the topic of war where I was. I don’t want to traumatize you or anyone else, but it’s scary there,’” Anastasia recalls.


Despite his fear, Vadym Nazarov continued his service until the very end.
“He’d say, ‘I can’t do anything else. Our country needs us. Who, if not us, will defend our country? Who will help our children and our mothers, if not us?” his wife recounts Vadym’s words.

In 2020, a child was born into the Nazarov family. The couple spent a long time choosing a name and settled on Rostyslav. In their opinion, it was the name that best suited his father’s name.

Vadym returned to service in 2021, when his son was not yet a year old. This time, he joined the 58th Brigade in the Sumy region to be closer to his family.

“I’m not going to sit around,” he says. He signed up himself, came in, and said, ‘I want to serve,’” Anastasia recounts.

Vadym immediately headed to the Joint Forces Operation zone and was there for his child’s first birthday. He wasn’t allowed to leave due to intense fighting. Anastasia says that Vadym was in Maryinka or Volnovakha at the time.

Over the years of his service, Vadym Nazarov held various positions: he was a rifleman-spotter, a signalman, and his final assignment was as a scout. He remained a scout until the very end.

  Vadym Nazarov spent the first days of the full-scale invasion in the Sumy region, where he was defending the border. A few days later, they were transferred to the Chernihiv region. Vadym was part of the 16th Battalion of the 58th Brigade.

“I called him, we talked, and then he stopped answering the phone. I called his cousin. He said, ‘Yeah, he’s in Chernihiv Oblast. Didn’t you know?’ I didn’t know that. My brother explained, ‘He didn’t tell you so you wouldn’t worry,’ his wife said.

On March 9, Vadym contacted his wife for the last time. He wrote to Anastasia that he loved her and their son very much, that he missed them, and that he was doing well. She still keeps that message.

After several days of trying to reach her husband, Anastasia began searching for Vadym through his comrades and commanders.

“The commander said that after the last battle, their fate was unknown. We didn’t give up hope and kept calling Vadym. Maybe the connection would come through and we’d hear from him somehow. But there was silence, silence, and we started looking for him on social media,” Anastasia said.

In early April, she posted an announcement on Facebook. She also stayed in constant contact with Vadym’s commander. He believed that a large portion of the Ukrainian military might be in captivity.

  After the search notice went out, locals started calling Anastasia.

They told her what had happened to them during the occupation, and several women offered to help her with the search. They checked the morgues, looked for a deceased person resembling Vadym, and checked for tattoos.

“They called me and said, ‘No, he’s not here, everything’s fine, keep looking—maybe he’s a prisoner of war.’ And somehow, our hope didn’t fade; that little flame stayed alive. And on April 12, the Bayev family called me—their son Roman. He told me that Vadym had been with them; they’d tried to hide him, but, he said, Vadym had been taken away and no one knows what happened to him. Well, we thought, okay, maybe he’s still a prisoner of war after all; we’re hoping,” says Anastasia.

One day, Vadym’s brother called his wife.

“He said, ‘That’s it, there’s no need to look for him anymore.’ That was around April 12. I asked, ‘In what sense is there no need to look for him?’ He said, ‘He’s gone.’ I asked, ‘Is this some kind of bad joke?’ ‘Vika’s sister called. They found him at the morgue,’ Anastasia recalls of that conversation.

She didn’t believe it right away and called Vadym’s sister, who had found him. The woman sent her a photo of his tattoo.

“I said, ‘It looks very similar.’ But maybe it’s not him? She said, ‘Unfortunately, it is him,’” Anastasia recounted.

A few days later, Vadym’s body was taken away and buried. And in September, a monument was unveiled in the village of Lukashivka to honor the defenders who died in combat. In particular, to Vadym Nazarov.

In 2022, Vadym Nazarov was posthumously awarded the Order “For Courage.” His wife and young son accepted the award.

Anastasia is now collecting signatures to submit a petition to posthumously award her husband the title of Hero of Ukraine. So far, only 7,800 votes have been collected out of the required 25,000.

“Thank you for not turning a blind eye, for investigating. Because it’s important to us that everyone knows what happened and how, so that they don’t forget. Who we’re fighting against and what we’re fighting for. And at what cost,” Anastasia told reporters.

Vadym’s son recently turned 3. When Vadym died, little Rostyslav was 1.5 years old. His mother doesn’t tell him what happened to his father because he’s still too young to understand.

“We have photos of Vadym hanging up. Rostislav recognizes him and says ‘daddy.’ He knows his father is there, but he’s not here,” the woman says.

Anastasia has collected all her husband’s photos into albums and keeps them to show her son later and tell him what his father was like. She says he’s growing up to be a little copy of his dad.

This material was prepared with the support of the European Union and the International Renaissance Foundation as part of the joint initiative “European Renaissance of Ukraine.” The material represents the authors’ views and does not necessarily reflect the position of the European Union or the International Renaissance Foundation.

This is an automatic translation generated by DeepL.