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FOURTH STORY
ATO Veteran Andrii Balan: “Previously, All the Thoughts Were Only about the War; Now, about the Community” Each ATO veteran wants to feel needed after returning from the battlefield. That is why Andrii Balan founded the NGO “Haidamatskyi Prostir.” This is a story of how the idea emerged and what ex-combatants are lacking in. Andrii is a fireman by profession. Before the war he worked in Donetsk, but after the self-proclamation of a pseudo-republic he decided not to stay there. He refused to take the oath of allegiance to the terrorists and, together with his friends, moved to Kostiantynivka – a town controlled by Ukraine. “Almost at once we began to ask the people there where their military commissariat was located. We wanted to join a volunteer battalion. But we were stopped. They told us that we would be needed in the town itself,” Andrii recalls. That was the start of the story of the public formation “Haidamaky” which was made up of 17 ex-combatants. The veterans help the police to protect public order; and if necessary, they, in Andrii’s words, “put things right.”
Andrii Balan has been active in public life after he returned from the war
