Andriy Vasylchenko had a farm for 300 piglets in the Luhansk region – the Russians stole them. He cultivated 1,000 hectares of land – the Russians occupied them.
Mr. Andriy founded his farm back in 1993 in the Starobilsk district of the Luhansk region. The land was cultivated and sown with grain. Then the grain was transported to the ports of Berdyansk and Mariupol and sold to Turkey. He had his own auto park.
There was also income from the sale of pork – it was sold at the markets of the nearby cities of Severodonetsk, Lysychansk, and Rubizhne. With the full-scale invasion of the russians, Andriy Vasylchenko lost everything, his entire life’s work – hundreds of piglets, his land, and a fleet of vehicles. Now he is reviving his business, but this time in Zhytomyr Oblast.
And the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation helps him with this. With the full-scale invasion of the Russians, Andriy Vasylchenko lost everything, his entire life’s work – hundreds of piglets, hectares of land, and a fleet of vehicles. But now it is starting to work – already in Zhytomyr Oblast.
And the Ukrainian Veterans Fund helps him in this. The village where Mr. Andrii’s farm operated was, as he put it, “in a pocket”, because on one side it was just 100 km away from Voronezh region of Russia, and on the other side it was surrounded by the temporarily occupied territories of Luhansk re by Russia. On the morning of February 24, the first massive shelling began.
Firstly, Mr. Andrii evacuated his family to western Ukraine. On February 27, the Russians came to his neighborhood – they wanted him, because Mr. Andriy is a participant in the Antiterrorist operation: in May 2014, he joined the ranks of the Starobilsk Self-Defense Force, and in June the “Aidar” battalion.
He took part in battles for Shchastya and Zolote-4 in his native Luhansk region. He served in the Armed Forces till the end of 2015.
“Everything in the house has been turned upside down. Even the vodka that was left after the New Year celebration was taken out of the kitchen from the cupboard. Meat and fish were taken out of the freezer. They broke the locks, stole all the equipment. 300 piglets were also taken away – they were loaded and taken away, they came six or seven times to pick up every single one,” he says.
His native village is now occupied, Mr. Andrii settled in Zhytomyr Oblast — life goes on.
He applied for the “VARTO” program from the Ukrainian Veterans Foundation, and received funding for the development of freight transportation services – he will transport grain. He has already bought a car, and plans to get a transport trailer.
The man dreams of returning to his native Luhansk region. He calls the disintegration of the Russian Federation as a state and the return of Ukraine to its official borders as a true victory in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
