Category Archives: Ukraine

The story of several Roma from Svalyava, in Transcarpathian Ukraine who volunteered in the Ukrainian Army in the fight against Russia. The oldest among them is Mykhailo Tytychko, alias Baron. He got this nickname for his considerable authority in the Roma community. He is the only one of the volunteers who had military service experience.

Baron shares that at first the other guys in their unit were wary. A certain tension was felt. Later, Mykhailo himself found out in a conversation with his brothers that there were certain fears. They lived in constant tension and fear that something would be stolen from them – they themselves admitted to me a month later. But this mistrust passed very quickly – as soon as the boys took a good look at us, we became so close that we became like a family.

• Росіяни завжди дивилися на нас згори, хоча самі по життю — ніхто: історія ромів, які стали на захист України. In: Vikna. 12.11.2022. https://vikna.tv/istorii/rosiyany-zavzhdy-dyvylysya-na-nas-zgory-hocha-sami-po-zhyttyu-nihto-istoriya-romiv-yaki-staly-na-zahyst-ukrayiny/

My name is Panchenko Oleksii Mykhailovych. I lived all my life in the Zaporizhia region, in the city of Kamianka-Dniprovska. I have lived in my parents’ house all my life. I am married and have two children: the first daughter Angela, then the boy David and the youngest Tatyanochka. Before the war, I was a truck driver, worked at the wheel for six years, often visited abroad.

I found out about the beginning of the war right away… because right next to us there were Russian troops, about 6 km from my house. From February 24 to April 8, there was no way I could leave the city to take my family to a safe place. Periodically there was heavy shelling, and sometimes we were not allowed out of the city at all. At one point, my wife and I packed our things and our children and decided to try to leave at our own peril and risk. This time we succeeded. We arrived on the Ukrainian controlled territory.

On the morning of April 15, I came to the Military Commissariat, whose employees were all very shocked “that a Roma is eager to serve.” I passed the medical examination in three days, I haven’t told my wife anything on this topic yet. Only on April 20 did my wife find out that I was already in the military.

• Боротьба за вільну Україну: ром Олексій Панченко у лавах ЗСУ. In: RomaUA. 04.11.2022. https://romaua.org.ua/news/ukraine/1667595325584

The twenty-nine-year-old Rom Vasil Medvědenko, together with his brother, volunteered for the Ukrainian army after seeing the footage of the massacre in Bucha. He decided to defend his homeland. At first Vasil could not believe the news about the Russian invasion, but after a few days he was sure that it was really a war. “I realized that this is a big problem for my country, where I grew up and raised my children. At first I thought that it wouldn’t last long, maybe a month, maybe it would end sooner, but when I saw the news about Bucha, I realized that it would be for a long time. It was the terrible events in Bucha that forced me to act – to voluntarily defend my native country,” he told RomaUA, a Ukrainian Roma information site that reported his story.

• Romové ve válce: Mladý voják Vasil už půl roku brání Ukrajinu před ruským agresorem. In: Romea. 17.10.2022. https://romea.cz/cz/zahranici/romove-ve-valce-mlady-vojak-vasil-uz-pul-roku-brani-ukrajinu-pred-ruskym-agresorem/