Paralympics-Ukrainian war amputee fights his way to Paris Games

Paralympics-Ukrainian war amputee fights his way to Paris Games

By Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey, Thomas Peter and Margaryta Chornokondratenko

EDITORS NOTE: This story was filmed by Reuters journalist Ivan Lyubysh-Kirdey on Aug. 7, 19 and 20. It was one of the last stories he filmed before a missile strike hit a hotel in which he and a Reuters team were staying in the Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. Ivan remains in a critical condition in hospital. Reuters safety adviser Ryan Evans was killed in the attack.

When he was wounded in fierce fighting near the eastern city of Bakhmut in March last year, Ukrainian soldier Yevhenii Korinets thought he was going to die.

"I had almost said goodbye to life," he told Reuters in the town of Reshetylivka. "There was one thought in my mind: 'I'm 25, I haven't been anywhere, haven't travelled anywhere, haven't seen the world and now I'm dying'."

Seventeen months on and Korinets' life has turned around.

The former military paramedic, whose left leg was amputated at the hip, qualified for the national sitting volleyball team and spoke during a break from training with fellow athletes ahead of the Paralympics in Paris which opened on Wednesday.

"Now I am travelling, I've been everywhere: the United States, China, countries like that, and obviously Europe too," Korinets said in early August during a break in drills in a gym in central Ukraine.

He is one of around 140 Ukrainian athletes competing at the 2024 Paralympic Games, a competition that has taken on added significance after Russia's full-scale invasion that has left thousands of soldiers and civilians with life-altering injuries.

Russian and Belarusian athletes can only compete as neutrals without flags after their participation in global sports events was severely curtailed following the invasion.

For Korinets, sport has been a major help with his recovery after losing a limb, and he encouraged other veterans to try it.

Their rehabilitation into society is a huge challenge for authorities 2 1/2 years into a conflict defined by intense artillery fire and heavily mined battlefields.

"All types of sport must be popularised in towns and cities so that war veterans don't sit at home without knowing what to do," he said. "The boys must keep calling him, looking for him, telling him: 'This activity is available, let's train together, let's go, come on'."

Korinets, who is from the central city of Zhytomyr, said he went straight to the draft office on the day the Russians sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

He first joined a defence squadron tasked with protecting critical infrastructure, before moving to the 30th Separate Mechanized Brigade as a paramedic stationed close to Bakhmut.

The city was the scene of some of the fiercest clashes of the war so far, and Russia seized control of its mostly ruined streets in May last year.

Ukraine's performances at recent Paralympics has far surpassed those at the Olympics. The Paralympic team ranked sixth at the Tokyo Games held in 2021 and third in Brazil in 2016.

Before leaving for Paris, Korinets had only one goal.

"Victory, we don't need anything else."