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IT was just after 5am and still dark when the watch commander of the 4th Fire and Rescue Unit got a call from dispatch.
A hypersonic missile had torn through the dawn sky and slammed into a nine-storey apartment block close to the banks of the Dnipro River.
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Five floors were well ablaze and those trapped inside were already overwhelmed by the thick, acrid smoke billowing skywards from the now open windows.
The firefighters hurtled through the streets of Zaporizhzhia at breakneck speed, lights on and sirens blaring, in a race against time.
Chief fire officer Andriy Nesterenko looked up. The horizon was glowing and there were now clouds of smoke guiding their way.
When Andriy’s crew arrived, both sides of the apartment block were on fire. People on the fifth, sixth and seventh floors contemplated jumping to escape the flames.
Andriy, 39, and his team put on breathing apparatus and ran through the front door, up an internal stairwell and into the red zone to do what they do best.
They are the unsung heroes of Ukraine’s Home Guard — the men without weapons whose task is to preserve life, not take it.
Ever since Russia launched its illegal invasion, the men of Ukraine’s State Emergency Service have run towards the danger without a moment’s hesitation.
Their heroism is only matched by the soldiers of the zero line who continue to repel enemy troops advancing at a snail’s pace and at huge cost.
‘We’re scared but we pull ourselves together’
The Sun was given exclusive access to the men of the watch who put their lives at risk on a daily basis.
For them, talk of peace is premature whilst Russia continues to “weaponise the cold” by waging war on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure — sparking daily 16-hour blackouts.
Brave Andriy says: “You had the Blitz during the Second World War. This is ours.”
His words, and the pictures of the fires raging across his war-torn country ever since this senseless war began, are a reminder of their daily sacrifice.
As bomb shelters fill with men, women and children, amid the wail of air raid sirens, he and his men are above ground risking it all.
They are scrambling through the rubble within the shell-shocked husks of buildings laid waste by Russian missiles and drones.
And they are here in Zaporizhia — just ten miles from enemy positions on the frontline — tackling the latest outrage.
Andriy says: “The fire was massive and the people inside were suffocating. People were trying to jump out of the windows.
“There was very little time to react, to spread out and rescue people.
“I went inside with oxygen canisters and a protective hood and started locating people.
“An aerial ladder was extended and we began evacuating the families.
“It turned out that two children, a man and a woman, were trying to get out from the sixth floor.”
Another woman was rescued from her apartment balcony by an aerial ladder as the unending smoke funnelled out of the windows.
Andriy and his team delayed tackling the fire to rescue eight people from the flames before dousing it with gallons of water.
The bags beneath his eyes and the tiredness in his voice tell their own story.
For him, the threat of the so-called Russian double tap — a second missile fired at the same scene as rescue workers respond — looms ever large.
A total of 111 firefighters have been killed and more than 400 injured since Russia launched its illegal invasion in February 2022.
Their only protection is body armour that consists of two Kevlar body plates to the front and back.
The vast majority have died as a result of Vladimir Putin’s bloodthirsty pursuit of maximising casualties.
It is always scary. But when you go to the call, when there is information about the threat to people’s lives, when you understand that it hit the house where people live, we don’t think about our safety
Chief fire officer Andriy Nesterenko
Andriy was wounded in the first few months of the war and recalled: “One of my colleagues, with whom I worked for a long time, died.
“We were carrying him in our arms, trying to help him, treating his wounds. But he suffered catastrophic bleeding and did not survive.”
He adds: “We try not to think about it. We put a person in place who can at least hear incoming and we constantly scan our position.
“If there is a threat, the dispatch centre tells us, but there are moments when they do not have time.
“It is always scary. But when you go to the call, when there is information about the threat to people’s lives, when you understand that it hit the house where people live, we don’t think about our safety.
“We only think about what needs to be done to save people. There are more important things than your own life and your own safety.”
He brushes off suggestions of bravery and heroism and insists they do it because no one else can.
They do it because they are trained to. It is, he says, their duty.
Pavlo Proskurnikov, 27, commander of the watch of the 3rd Fire and Rescue Unit, is just the same.
He headed to an apartment block after a rocket attack on an almost identical building further out of the city centre.
The fifth floor was destroyed and up to ten people were feared dead.
Offering a profound insight into the trauma he and thousands of his colleagues now carry, his voice lowers and his tone fills with regret.
He says: “It’s not necessarily what you see that is the worst thing. It’s often what you hear that haunts you. We can hear the people buried under the rubble. We can hear their screams as we’re working.
“The silence when the screams stop is perhaps the most painful. It means they are gone.
“We’re scared but we pull ourselves together.”
‘Why do it? Why target children?’
He adds: “We’re exhausted but we understand that this is our job and we are obliged to do it.”
They are, of course, traumatised by what they have seen and heard.
Pavlo adds: “The scars of this war will last for the rest of our lives because we will tell how it happened so that no one will forget what was happening in this country.”
British volunteer and documentary filmmaker Edward Matthews, 27, arrived in Ukraine at the start of the war and set up the charity Brave Minds to help the firefighters.
As he waits for the delivery of three fire engines from the UK, Edward, of York, tells The Sun: “You barely hear about what they do because they’re part of a wider story.
“They are extremely traumatised by what they have seen. There isn’t a single firefighter in Ukraine who does not have anxiety, PTSD or depression.
“But mental health support is severely lacking and attitudes to accessing it is particularly bad.
“There’s still a lot of stigma around it, and if they are diagnosed with mental health issues they are immediately suspended. So very few seek any help.
“In the last two weeks we have had eight firefighters sign up. That’s a spike for us.”
Back in Zaporizhzhia, at a burned-out marketplace where five people lost their lives, firefighter Andriy Dotsenko, 38, is surveying the damage.
We found a young boy’s body. He was already dead, with a fractured skull. It was hard mentally to cope with
Chief fire officer Andriy Nesterenko
Married dad-of-one Andriy, commander of the watch of the 4th Fire and Rescue Unit in the region, said: “Our main priority is to save people.
“There’s no time to think about safety. We’re looking for shelter, but first of all, our job is to save people.
“I’ve been to over 40 fires since the start of the war.
“The worst was a fire at a private house. When we arrived, we found a man under the rubble.
“We gave him to the ambulance and then we found his wife, who was about 70 years old. She didn’t survive.
“In the news, it’s a dry statistic. But when you see it and work there, two people’s lives are ruined.”
At a fire station in the north eastern border region of Kharkiv, married dad-of-two Vitaly Myronenko, 30, stands proudly in his uniform which identifies him as a “Ukrainian Rescuer”, not firefighter.
He said: “Our first task is to save people. We are rescuers first.”
It is an important distinction to make. Vitaly pauses momentarily and begins to talk about an attack on the Barabashovo market in 2022.
Stalls covering 2,800 square metres erupted in flames after repeated shelling by the Russians.
Vitaly recalls: “We found a young boy’s body.
“He was already dead, with a fractured skull. It was hard mentally to cope with.
“We try to live this day as it is now. We put the past behind us and support each other.
“We try not to remember it but it stays with you.”
Another rescuer, Kyrylo Shvachka, 36, was among the “Heroes of Kharkiv” who saved 48 after a kindergarten in the city was hit by a drone at the end of October.
The married dad-of-three said: “Why do it? Why target children?
“We’ll never get used to it. We can get, look for or restore money and land but we won’t get back the human lives that have been lost.
“Every family has at least one person to whom this war has touched them really close. I want this war to end as soon as possible.”
Oleksii Puha, 41, deputy head of the main department of the State Emergency Service in Zaporizhzhia, summed up their contribution.
He said: “For us, firefighters are heroes without weapons. We do our best to try to save as many people as possible.
“It’s our job. If not us, who?”
- Additional reporting: Olena Makarenko
English (US) · 