Mykola Kulichenko was beaten by Russians, shot in the face, and buried alive, but the Ukrainian clawed back to life, refusing to die. Speaking to CNN, the 33-year-old said, “It’s like being resurrected”. 

Despite the Russian invasion on February 24, and the subsequent capture of Dovzhyk, the village where the Kulichenkos lived, they weren’t impacted much. However, this changed on March 18, when Russian troops fanned out looking for those responsible for their column being bombed.

Troops entered the house of the Kulichenko brothers, while their sister Iryna was absent. Finding their grandfather’s wartime medals and a uniform belonging to Yevhen, the 30-year-old paratrooper, the Russian troops were convinced the family had something to hide. 

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Yevhen was taken outside, made to kneel, and beaten with a truncheon. The brothers were taken to a basement and interrogated for three days. “They beat my whole body with a metal rod, and they put the barrel of a gun inside my mouth”, the survivor recounted. 

After that, they were blindfolded and driven to a desolate plot of land, to be executed. 

The eldest, 36-year-old Dmytro, was the first to bite the bullet, and then Yevhen, the youngest fell. “I was thinking that I was next”, recounted Kulichenko. 

However, the bullet entered through his cheek and exited next to the right ear. 

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Playing dead was his only hope of survival, even when the Russians kicked the brothers’ bodies into the pit, covered it with earth, and left. “It was hard for me to breathe since Dima (Dmytro) was lying on top of me, but using my arms and knees, I was able to push my older brother off to the side of the pit, and then I climbed out”, the survivor recalled. 

Despite his hands and legs being tied, Mykola was able to manoeuvre out from underneath his brother’s corpse and return to the land of the living. He walked past a Russian checkpoint, to the nearest village where a resident, Valentyna Petrivna, took care of him overnight. 

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Then, he walked another 40 km to his home, where his sister was anxiously waiting. Only after Russian troops withdrew from Chernihiv, could Mykola retrieve the bodies of his brothers, and give them a proper burial. 

Admitting it’s a miracle he survived, Mykola lives with the scars on his cheek and behind his ear. “I was lucky… and now I have to just go on living”, he said, adding, “This story needs to be heard by everyone, not just in Ukraine, but around the world because these kind of things are happening and this is just one in a billion.”