Ukraine's Viktoriia Honcharuk: From Wall Street banker to combat medic • FRANCE 24 English

[00:00:00]Meanwhile, at the G7 today, relaunching balanced growth across the world, global tech, as well as shoring up discussions on the main topics of the summit, of course, Ukraine and Iran, all on the agenda on the third and last day of that summit in Evian, in the east of France.

[00:00:15]You can see these images just coming into us of the German Chancellor there, Friedrich Merz, and some of the other leaders beginning to gather for the summit today. It comes, of course, after Donald Trump said that he had a very good meeting yesterday with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, saying "Too many young men are dying on the battlefield and that Russia should make a deal."

[00:00:37]And we're going to stay on the subject of Ukraine, in fact, for today's perspective, cuz my guest on the program today is a remarkable woman who's given up her dream job as an investment analyst at Morgan Stanley on Wall Street to return home to her native country of Ukraine to work during the war, initially as a combat medic. Now, Victoria Honcharuk was just starting her career when the war broke out. She felt she simply couldn't continue to work as normal in the US when her country needed her, so she went home to join the fight.

[00:01:05]And this week, she's here in Paris, on the outskirts of Paris, in fact, at the huge defense trade show, Eurosatory.

[00:01:11]We'll talk about that in just a moment, but she joins us now here in the studio.

[00:01:14]Thanks very much for coming in and and talking to us. Um let's go back in time, first of all. Tell us what happened um when the war first broke out, cuz we saw that image of you there at Morgan Stanley working so far away from home. I mean, that must have been a a very difficult moment for you.

[00:01:30]>> Uh it was. I moved to the US when I was 15, so I was quite young, and I went to high school and then university in the United States.

[00:01:38]Um so, it was quite difficult to be there when I first heard that Russia launched a full-scale invasion in Ukraine. I tried calling my parents, my sister, who were all in Ukraine at that time, and nobody was picking up, so I I didn't know what to think.

[00:01:54]>> Yeah.

[00:01:55]And what was your thought afterwards, once you realized the scale of what was happening? And was it an immediate reaction to think I've got to go home?

[00:02:04]>> Yeah. Immediate reaction was everything that I was doing before didn't matter as much. I, you know, I was I was young. I was building a career in finance and Wall Street. And that felt so important to me when I was young. I felt like there is nothing else that I should be doing but advancing my career.

[00:02:23]Uh but when I realized that the scale of what Russia is doing and it is is an existential war that Russia is not going to stop on Ukraine as well, that it's a much larger war for all of us in Europe. I realized that this is the time in history where I have to make tough decisions and where I want to be a part of the resistance of this evil and that I have to be back home.

[00:02:44]>> So, how did you make that decision when it was it was it almost instantaneous or did it take you a few days?

[00:02:49]>> Um it took me some time because in the beginning of the full-scale invasion, uh everyone was short on supplies and I was making good money. Um so, first um the helpful thing that I could do was to find those supplies and send them to Ukraine. And that's what I was doing for first couple of months. And when I realized that I think I've exhausted, you know, my resources here and I don't feel like I'm fully in the fight and I feel like I have to be. Although, I have not I had nothing to do with military. I was very skeptical of all uh you know, armed conflicts in general.

[00:03:24]I always thought that things can be solved in different way.

[00:03:30]But then I realized that maybe not.

[00:03:32]Maybe that's something that I have to do for myself and come back and and protect what matters to me the most. Something that made me me, my culture, my language, uh my history. And nothing else matters much as making sure that Ukraine stays Ukraine and that I can have something for the future of the generations, you know, if I have kids, I want to be able to look them in the eyes and say I have done everything possible to make sure that you guys have a future and that you can speak Ukrainian, that you can have the culture and you can know your history.

[00:04:05]>> So, tell us what you were doing initially. Army medic, yes?

[00:04:08]>> That is correct. Most of my time in combat I spent as an army medic.

[00:04:12]I had nothing to do with medicine before a full-scale invasion. Again, I was in banking.

[00:04:17]They are different. I was afraid of blood. I was afraid of needles.

[00:04:22]>> [laughter] >> I was a very girly girl before a full-scale invasion.

[00:04:25]>> Yeah.

[00:04:25]>> But when I wanted to join the very short of medics and I said that's something that I can try to do, especially as a young woman.

[00:04:33]It was quite difficult to just break in like some of the combat roles in the beginning of full-scale invasion. So, I said whatever you need me to do, I'll do.

[00:04:42]And medic was something that they needed. So, I braced myself. I learned very quickly what to do and in like 1 and 1/2 weeks after initial training, I was on a battlefield.

[00:04:54]>> So, did you brace yourself enough? I mean, what you came across on the battlefield must have been at times pretty horrific.

[00:05:00]>> It It was like anything I ever imagined in my life.

[00:05:04]And hopefully I'll never experience this again.

[00:05:09]But I think I was very good at separating my brain from everything else. And so, my hands were just doing what I needed to do and then my brain was catching up later on the things that I witnessed and that I had to do.

[00:05:23]>> And are you able to separate from it now? I mean, I know you're not a medic on the front line anymore, but presumably those memories will never go away.

[00:05:30]>> That is true. Yeah. I I did also lose a lot of my close friends. In fact, on Saturday, right before coming here, we had a funeral of two of my closest friends.

[00:05:40]They were killed 3 years ago, but they were just buried now.

[00:05:44]Quite difficult. I did have to evacuate the bodies as well from the battlefield and had to recognize them.

[00:05:51]It was like anything I ever imagined humans have to go through in this day and age and definitely will haunt me forever, but I know why they made the decision.

[00:06:01]They were all young people who wanted to stand up for Ukraine.

[00:06:07]One of the people that we buried in Saturday, he was from Donetsk. A city that's occupied since 2014 and and more than anything he wanted to come back to his home city with a Ukrainian flag and live in Ukraine in his own city. So I know what they fought for. I know the values that they fought for and I am proud more than anything that I can carry on that mission for them and that I fight for the same values for the values for the whole of Ukraine for the values of all Europe and all Western world.

[00:06:38]>> And she's saying you're still fighting but in different capacity now. Tell us what you're doing now.

[00:06:41]>> That is true. I recently became the head of military civilian partnerships in technology sector.

[00:06:49]What it means is as you know Ukraine's been advancing so much in technological perspective, especially my own third army corps. So third army corps is the land forces unit in Ukraine. We're holding about 150 km, which is 12% of all of the combat line currently in Ukraine, which is the biggest any corps in Ukraine is holding and we were able to do this largely because of our technological advancements. Last year we're quite famous for using unmanned ground vehicles, especially strike unmanned ground vehicles. We were the first ones to assault and take over position without any infantry involvement.

[00:07:27]President Zelensky had mentioned this recently. We also took two prisoners of wars using unmanned ground vehicles and since then we've been doing a lot of assault and supporting assaults with strike unmanned ground vehicles and the goal of our commander Andriy Biletsky is also to replace a third of all of the infantry by the end of this year with robots.

[00:07:46]Um because we want to save our people and want to make sure that we can replace some of the jobs that um infantry is doing right now with what robots are doing. And so my job is to find partners in the private sector, the companies that are making that technology, and have a more closer and structured partnership with the military because the military is the end users.

[00:08:05]We know what we need and we know what that should look like. And so we need to be the people who tell them the private sector should do so.

[00:08:11]>> I mean technology has made such a difference in this war, hasn't it? I mean that seems to be the thing which is really turning the tide. How optimistic are you now um for Ukraine bearing in mind the news that we've been receiving notably from the front line over the last few months?

[00:08:24]>> Yeah.

[00:08:25]Um as you know, war in Ukraine has now been longer than World War I for example. So it's been some time and um Russia, as you know, has been losing more and more soldiers per square kilometer.

[00:08:38]And some of the news were coming out in this uh with those numbers. Uh but Ukraine is winning in a different in different way. We're losing less soldiers. We are using less soldiers for um some of the very traditional jobs on the front lines. That's what we do.

[00:08:53]We're very optimistic in that regard that we're we'll be able to replace a third of our infantry at their army core with um robots. But also we are very optimistic in some of the other things that we're doing. For example, as you know, spring is is quite um good time for assaults from both sides. And uh Russia did try to assault um the combat line that we're holding pretty harshly this spring.

[00:09:17]Uh but again, I'll echo our commander uh core commander Andriy Biletsky who said this is probably um a turning point in um our operations right now. And we've been using something called middle strikes uh in our core level to prevent enemy from even trying to assault targeting their logistical hubs, targeting um their personal hubs, fuel tankers, anything that supplies the frontline units of Russia, so that we can stop them even before they start assaulting our positions.

[00:09:51]>> What would be your message to people? I mean, obviously people are watching this around the world. A lot of people sort of engaged in the in the fight that Ukraine has, but at the same time, you know, are world leaders doing enough?

[00:10:03]Are people doing enough? Is there more that can be done by the rest of the world to try and help the fight?

[00:10:09]>> Yeah.

[00:10:10]I definitely feel the support of people.

[00:10:12]I I travel a lot right now abroad both the US and Europe, and I do feel the support of people, which is which is great when people come and ask questions and and express their support.

[00:10:22]One area that we always try to push more in is learning from Ukraine. I mean, obviously it's hard to learn when there's no threat coming in, but Ukraine is the most advanced technologically army in the world, and we are probably going to be the push, you know, the the most technological army in Europe, and rest of European countries need to learn the tactics, need to learn the technology. So, work with Ukraine, learn from Ukraine, learn with Ukraine, build with Ukraine. We have a lot of those programs, so let's continue working together.

[00:10:55]>> Good to have you on the program today.

[00:10:56]Thanks very much for coming in. Victoria Hunju joining us here on the program.

[00:11:00]Back off to the trade show very shortly, I gather. So, thanks very much once again for today's perspective.