Andriy Kachur was born on 24th August 1993 in the town of Mala Vyska in Kropyvnytskyi region. Andriy is a professional athlete. He belongs to the Kharkiv para-armwrestling team and is a member of the Ukraine national para-armwrestling team. The man has a physical disability.
Until 24th February 2022, Andriy Kachur lived in Kharkiv. He worked in IT and has been preparing for the Ukrainian para-armwrestling championship.
After 24th February, life was divided into before and after… I had beautiful plans for this year, and unfortunately it so happened that everything was taken away from me”.
“IT STARTED JUST LIKE WITH
OUR GRANDPARENTS, AT 5 AM”
On the morning of 24th February 2022, Andriy was woken up by a call from a friend.
He said: ‘Andriy, the war has started! Grab your things quickly and go home, not even to Kyiv but to your parents…’ To be honest, I did not believe him and went back to sleep. But my sleep didn’t last long as I heard explosions, heard planes, heard mass hysteria in the street and began to think quickly what to do. I was probably lucky because I lived on the ground floor and I had a bomb shelter — just 50 meters from the lobby. I stayed there until the evening when it all died down”.
After talking to his coach, Andriy decided to evacuate, although at first the man was rather skeptical about it. He believed that the attacks would stop in a few days.
By that time, I already knew that saboteurs had driven all over Kharkiv and scattered all sorts of not very good things that one shouldn’t pick up. I left the apartment to go to the train station. In my lobby, I saw a black package. It was already night-time... And there were some steps, I had no way to get around them. I could not jump down ’cause I was on crutches... And I just thought that maybe it would turn out okay after all. Because I lived in such an area — I did not live in Saltovka, but in the area of the 71st, it still suffers. So I started to go down the steps. And then the wind blew, and this package appeared. I froze with fear, just for a moment. But then I realized that it was just a package, and it was just blown away. I got in a taxi, we drove through the whole city — it was very scary, everything was burning somewhere far away, there were flashes”.
The coach helped Andriy to take a train to Kropyvnytskyi. Two days later, the railway track on which the train was travelling was bombed.
In the morning, on 25th February, the man arrived at his parents’ house in Mala Vyska, Kropyvnytskyi region.
Andriy became apathetic. He lost his job. It was hard for him to accept the fact that the war changed his life, that all the efforts and resources invested in his sports career were wasted.
