Viktor Litovchenko, 30 years old. Officially he worked as an electrician and took on other jobs on the side. His hobby was car chip tuning. When the full-scale invasion began, he did not spend long deciding whether to go and defend his country: «I have small children. First of all, I would not want them to learn what war is and to see all that horror. So I went. Secondly — who, if not us? And thirdly, the call-up papers came. I was away at the time. I came back four days later, took that piece of paper and joined the Armed Forces. My rank is senior soldier, my position is senior assault, infantry.»

The wound

Viktor was wounded during shelling with cluster munitions. He sustained a blast injury: a fragment went through two ribs and into the thoracic spinal cord (Th12). Coming round after the wound, for some time he could not take in what was happening to him: «I did not believe it had happened to me. I did not even want to think that now I would not walk and would be like a vegetable. For two months I could not even lift my head»… Later he moved into a wheelchair and began talking with occupational and physical therapists, doctors, volunteers… A great deal of thinking about his condition and about the life ahead, many conversations with people who cared, and the significant support of his family — that is what helped Viktor, as he puts it himself, «to sort everything into place in my head so as not to lose my mind» and to start living fully again…

From Irpin to Wrocław

Rehabilitation began in Kyiv, at the evacuated Irpin hospital, which was then housed in one of the capital’s medical facilities. «In two months there,» Viktor says, «they brought me back to myself: they sat me in a wheelchair, taught me to dress and undress, to transfer, explained bladder and bowel management. Then I moved to Klevan in the Rivne region — the Rivne Regional Hospital for War Veterans. I stayed there until I was taken abroad under a Ministry of Health programme. I spent four months at St Martin’s hospital in Wrocław, Poland. From there I came back to Klevan, and that is exactly when I met the Group for Active Rehabilitation.»

Meeting GAR

In January 2023 the Group for Active Rehabilitation presented its work at the military hospital in Klevan and spoke about evidence-based rehabilitation. Viktor Litovchenko was one of the thirteen servicemen attending that presentation and those lectures. That is where he met the leaders of our organisation: Maksym, Tetiana and Karyna.

The acquaintance began in a rather interesting way. At first, hearing that a spinal cord injury cannot be fully reversed, Viktor was indignant: «So what are you suggesting now — just sit there and do nothing?» Karyna Kardash, GAR project manager, recalls: «When we ran certain activities and lectures, he kept himself as far away as possible, as if ignoring everything that was happening.» Then, little by little, he began approaching our leaders; they would sit at the same table in the canteen, sometimes crossed paths during a smoke break and talked about all sorts of things, including important ones…

The wheelchair skills training made an impression on Viktor (at the lectures, he says, he dozed off). But what caught him most was the mission that unites all GAR leaders: bringing a person with a spinal cord injury back to a full, independent life.

«Simply being useful to people and knowing that they can spend less time in the bad state most people went through, not knowing what rehabilitation is. And all the more so if you can change that — make sure people get this information, gain the skills and feel the thirst for life far sooner than it happened to me. I am very glad it works — helping people this way. I enjoy it, it enriches me both emotionally and spiritually.»

— Viktor Litovchenko shares his feelings with enthusiasm

From rejection to First Contact

In this time Viktor has gone through many transformations: from complete rejection of himself, of the situation and of our work, to the point where he takes part in GAR programmes himself and wants to help those left with a spinal cord injury by their wounds. He completed the First Contact training programme, online and in person, and took part in medical seminars in Lutsk. It is thanks to Viktor, by the way, that we are introducing First Contact in that region, where there had been nothing of the kind before. He also took part in the active rehabilitation camp in Chortkiv. Straight after the camp Viktor received an active-type Panthera 3 wheelchair as a gift, and was delighted with it: «It is far more comfortable to move; the chair is new, quiet, light, manoeuvrable. The ride is different, and so is the look.» Viktor says he has spent a great deal of useful time with GAR and does not plan to stop — he will strengthen his ties with our organisation. «I took a lot of useful things from them,» he says, «and now I pass it on to other people who, sadly, have wounds like mine.»

Viktor trained at Momentum Wheels for Humanity Ukraine as a coach and mentor working alongside other specialists in a multidisciplinary team, and is now starting work at the Lviv territorial medical association together with three other trainers: Oleksandr Boiko, Vira Kalytovska and Vasyl Negura.

What next

He recently returned from Latvia. As a representative of the veteran community, together with other GAR leaders, Viktor took part in the first Riga Academy: he attended lectures on the fundamentals of the rights of people with disabilities under the UN Convention and studied Latvia’s practical experience — how that country managed to move towards inclusion and equal rights for people with disabilities since ratifying the Convention.

As Viktor was wounded a year and a half ago, he still feels like a newcomer. He believes he is in the stage of making sense of a new life: «Not everything has reached me yet, I am still studying myself.» He is thinking about the future but does not announce his plans publicly. What is certain is that he is not giving up: he intends to reach heights regardless of his physical condition. We are glad that Viktor Litovchenko plans to tie his own future to GAR: «I will absorb as much information as I can, because it matters. I hope I will stay with GAR for a long time!»