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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
The story of 33-year-old serviceman Ivan Voinov, who survived a direct hit from a half-ton guided air bomb, has entered the "Voices of the Peace" museum of the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.
After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Ivan spent more than a year trying to join the military. In January 2023 he joined the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and later his unit came under a massive air strike near Vovchansk in Kharkiv region.
As a result of the strike, the serviceman sustained severe injuries: damage to the skull and jaw, and he lost a leg. After the injury Ivan underwent dozens of operations and lost 18 kg.
"I didn’t feel like I was wounded. I felt as if a truck had run me over. Well, yes, it hurt. A few minutes after the impact I could see with my right eye, with my left eye I could not see at all," Ivan recalls.
On the seventh day after the injury the left side of his face stopped moving completely. For a month the serviceman performed daily exercises to restore facial expressions.
"I keep looking in the mirror, I do it and I look to see if anything is happening at all. When a muscle moved, it felt like a victory. The facial expression did not fully recover to 100%. I have certain moments where the left side sags. This affected the muscles of the jaw," the veteran explains.
During treatment and rehabilitation, Ivans's girlfriend Solomiya stood by him, who later became his wife.
"That support was very necessary. Communication, the desire to do something, the will to live further," Ivan admits.
The couple celebrated their wedding at the National Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine in Pirogovo. During the ceremony they combined traditions of Kyiv region and Galicia, from where the newlyweds originate.
"I once told him that it would be wonderful to have the wedding at Pirogovo. Because I’m from Galicia myself and really wanted a traditional Ukrainian Galician wedding here in Kyiv. And he remembered all that. So we ended up with a surprising, very beautiful, very Ukrainian, very traditional, ceremonial wedding in Pirogovo, which I wanted," Solomiya says.
Now Ivan acts in the Theater of Veterans, participates in Spartan races, and is preparing for wakeboarding competitions. Together with his wife, he has also begun practicing partnered dance, which has become part of his rehabilitation.
The story of Ivan Voinov can be viewed at the link.
According to the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, the Voices of the Peace museum collection features more than 145 thousand stories of people who suffered as a result of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Вижив після прямого влучання авіабомби. Історія військового Івана Войнова увійшла до музею "Голоси мирних"". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: Gordon.
