Three years ago, life for Illya Lif was going well. The Kyiv businessman worked on real estate projects and ran a successful coffee business. In his downtime, he enjoyed sailing on his yachts and tinkering with his model aircraft collection.
Then came the Russian invasion.
“To be honest, I didn’t believe there would be a full-scale attack, Lif told RFE/RL from a position near the front lines in Ukraine's Donetsk region. "On the morning [of February 24, 2022] I looked online and there it was -- war. Everyone was panicking but I’ve always been lazy. I would have accepted death if it had meant avoiding all the chaos. For a few days I was shuttling between my house and my parents’ then I evacuated my family out of Ukraine and returned to Kyiv."
With his wealth and connections, Lif could easily have avoided fighting. Instead, he signed up to go to the front within a month of the invasion. “I didn’t want to leave my country, no matter what,” he explains. “I hate being forced to do anything, so what were my options?”
I was very affected by what I saw happening around me," Lif recalls of arriving at the front for the first time.
“The shelling is indiscriminate. Civilian houses are being destroyed where there is clearly no military infrastructure. Whether [Russian forces] are hitting them intentionally or not doesn't matter. I say, aim better.”
“Instead of going about my business, being with my family, I’m crawling around the trenches as dirty as a homeless person. All thanks to them!”
Today Lif commands a drone unit that undertakes reconnaissance, bombing and counter-drone missions. He also oversees a workshop where drones are repaired and built.
The businessman says the war has profoundly changed his outlook. "I used to chase new projects to achieve something. But now, speaking frankly, the war has severely hit my business. Some projects stand unfinished, others will never be worth the money I invested in them," he admits.
“I realize that I don’t need as much money as I thought. My priorities have shifted. What matters now is being at home, hearing my child in the next room and my parents chat in the background. I never appreciated those things before.”
"I wouldn’t divide people into rich and poor, we're all just human beings." Lif says. "In war it's about those people who can, and want to contribute. I have many wealthy friends who are fighting and haven't bought their way out, even though they have the means to do so."
Lif's early battlefield experience as a drone operator saw several close calls. On one reconnaissance flight a Russian tank spotted the Ukrainian drone operator and his fellow soldiers hiding under a bush. "As the drone was flying back I went to retrieve it. Luckily I had an experienced comrade with me who pushed me to the ground under the bush. Everyone took cover and was yelling: 'Leave the drone!'"
The tank opened fire on the unit. "Shells started exploding and there was shrapnel flying all around. It was so close." He credits his survival of that incident to "luck, or perhaps fate."
Lif’s daughter is now 11. “I’ve lost three years of her childhood. When we meet I hardly recognize her because she’s growing up without me,” he says, adding, “I hope some day she’ll understand why I had to do this and she’ll be proud of me.”
As soon as the war ends, Lif says, he will return to civilian life. “I don’t enjoy killing, perhaps some do, but not me.” Seeing his fellow soldiers losing their lives however stirs, “despair, anger and aggression that leaves me no choice but to fight.”
