“The lives of people are broken forever” — Myhailo, who drove to Mariupol six times
“Now I’m told that in my dreams I talk and cry a lot. Thank God, I don’t remember them.”
Hopping on the call late evening, Myhailo looked exhausted.
He was a talkative type but immediately said he was tired of telling the same stuff again and again as this was far from his first interview. I said we’re not taking usual interviews here.
“Where to begin then?” he asked.
“Speak your mind. Let it flow. I’ll do the rest”, I said.
Within the next 2,5 hours, I didn’t have to ask a single question.
My adventure reminds me of a story about an old Christian woman. One time she asked for help, and a rich man decided to play a joke on her. He passed a basket of food to her through his assistant. He also gave instructions to tell the old lady if she asked, the basket was from the devil.
When the assistant brought the basket, the old lady asked nothing.
“Don’t you want to know who gave you food?” asked the girl.
“When God wills something, the devil himself listens and does His will.”
In my story God established everything. I simply was behind the wheel. If God Himself is with you, no one will stand in the way.
I know this because I grew up in a Christian family. I also know that God doesn’t make mistakes when He creates someone. But it looks like something distracted Him with Putin.
After I brought my family to Ivano-Frankivsk and decided to drive back to Mariupol to evacuate families of the employees of my night club, my friends tried to talk me out of it. One of them even attempted to take my car keys. But I promised people I would come back for them. When I give my word, I keep it. Plus, my employees are like family to me.
My First and The Most Unforgettable Trip to Sieged Mariupol
For starters, I found a red Mercedes Sprinter for $2700. I didn’t have enough cash, so I used my credit card to split the payment.
I put a small red cross on the minibus. I hit the road but kept thinking “The cross is not big enough to see”. So, I texted everyone I knew in the middle of the night, asking for a paint job. People from Vinnytsia were ready to help. I drove there, and way past midnight, we were out in the freezing cold painting the minibus.
A buddy of mine was about to paint the inscription, but I was conflicted about which language should we use. As I was thinking about it, the word “Volunteers” in Ukrainian was up on the bus.
“Let’s paint an exclamation point instead of ‘s’.”
It turned out “Volunteer!”, which reads the same in Ukrainian and Russian. We made the same inscription on the rooftop just in case the drones would target it. It made no difference in the end.
I also asked the painter to add a few hearts around the sign, because essentially, it sends the right message.
As I started driving to Mariupol, I didn’t know the situation there day by day. No one has entered the city by car yet. No one communicated with Russians either. Ukrainian soldiers at check points kept telling me it was impossible to get in.
After I passed the last Ukrainian check point in Orekhovo I saw the colors of this war: burning tanks, smoking APCs, mines on the roads… I was driving around it carefully, worried, thoughts kept going through my head. The main one was “You fool, why are you driving there?!”
I saw another check point ahead but didn’t know whose it was yet. As I drove up to it, I saw Russian chevrons.
“Step out.”
I did.
“Hands up.”
They pointed their automatic weapons at me and moved away from the minibus. I wanted to ask many questions but kept quiet.
“Open up.”
I opened the back door of the bus slowly, afraid something might fall out. It was packed to the ceiling with humanitarian help. Bread, water, food, medicine, pampers. I didn’t realize I would need to show everything.
They got to examine the load. One of the soldiers took away the cigarettes right away and left. I was on pins and needles. I was there all by myself, no one would come to my rescue, and every move I made could be my last one.
Then the commanding officer split, and I was left one on one with this soldier, all worn out. He saw one of the crates and asked:
“Is it milk?”
I was thinking: “Maybe he suspects it’s poisoned?” I took it out, opened and told him it was milk, and it wasn’t poisoned.
“Can I have some?”
“Take it,” I replied. Could I refuse milk to a person with a gun pointed at me?
He took it. Then, suddenly, he asked:
“When will all this be over?”
“You know better,” I answered, unable to hold back a smile.
“I’m so tired. I want to go home. It was just supposed to be training exercises. I got into a vehicle, we drove for a long time somewhere and came out already in Ukraine. My friends died here. I don’t know what’s gonna happen next,” said the Russian soldier.
Fucking disaster. His commanding officer called for him, so the soldier told me to move along.
I realized I needed my cigarettes. I turned around and faced the guy who took them.
“Can I have back at least one pack?” I asked.
He made a snarky comment, but the officer told him to give back the cigarettes. I exhaled and got going, happy I wasn’t shot at the entrance to the city.
I got more confident with every passing check point. It was the same story everywhere: papers check, load inspection, questions “Why are you going there?”.
At one check point, a drunk Russian came up to me and said:
“I wanna go home. I’m sick of Ukraine already. I’ve seen it on my dick.”
“Ok, then, you will be going home very soon!” I responded sharply. God, I couldn’t believe I said it out loud. But the soldier didn’t react much other than “That’s harsh.” and let me go.
The closer I got to Mariupol, the worse I felt. Now there were burnt bodies on the ground. Some were disfigured to a point where I couldn’t tell the difference between the dirt from the vehicle tracks and the body parts.
Besides the mines, I had to drive around abandoned cars, combines, and burnt military vehicles. I drove from the sunny and light part of Ukraine into the dreary, gray, smoky world of sieged Mariupol.
Russian check points soon were replaced by Donetsk People’s Republic check points. It became obvious just by looking at them. Russian soldiers were staffed and dressed better. DPR guys were loose and unwashed.
At one check point, they asked me:
“Where are you taking all this?” To ‘ukrops’ [Russian slur for Ukrainians]? Well, you’re done driving.”
My heart sank. Then some young kid showed up, dressed differently than the rest, and started yelling at them: “Go take care of the equipment, you morons, get out of my sight!”
I was getting ready to leave when one of those cocky DPRers, who was going through stuff in my minibus with the others earlier, came up to me:
“Do you have socks?”
“My own, two pairs, both worn.”
“Give them to me.”
So, he fucking took my socks! (It’s now I can afford to be indignant about it, but then I sat there quietly and agreed to everything.)
The commanding officer didn’t let me through though:
“Don’t bother, we are not letting you through. You’re fucked. It’s either us or Ukraine who’ll shoot you down.”
I turned around and decided to take my chances on another road, through Mangush. The check points over that way turned out to be pretty loose, and I passed through them relatively fast.
I approached the city. Our soldiers planted mines in rows all the way through and tied them with ropes. I had to move along the edge, driving in and out to the curb. I almost hit one mine.
Finally, I was within the city limits. Suddenly, my minibus got hit with automatic gun fire. I hit the brakes, ran out, and hid behind the wheels of the abandoned truck nearby. Then I screamed. I screamed a shitload of stuff: ‘Volunteer!’, ‘Red Cross!’, ‘Civilian!’
When the soldiers with Ukrainian chevrons approached me, I exhaled. They checked me out carefully, curious what type I was, who just happened to pass all the mines. Turned out, I got right into the military action zone.
At first, the commanding officer decided to turn me around, but I stood my ground:
“Do what you will, but I’m not going back. I have to deliver the load first, then we can figure out my exit.”
They seemed to get it. They introduced me to their commanding officer, a very charismatic man. He was all grey haired, serious.
“You look fucking amazing. So sharp!” I told him straight up.
We got to talking. I explained to him, that I need insulin, food, and the rest of my stuff delivered to my night club. He organized a convoy for my minibus.
Finally, I made it to my night club. All my employees ran out to meet us. When I went down to the bomb shelter, I realized what a fucking disaster it was. I knew there were many people there, but not this many: out of 163 total, 40 were children, including infants. I brought too little food and not enough clothes.
“I unloaded everything, but tomorrow I’m leaving to load up more,” I told the commanding officer.
“You can’t just leave the city. You’ll get shot and killed.”
“I will find a way. Your job is to let me out. The rest is my business.”
Basically, we made a deal. Pretty soon the soldiers from other regiments heard about me and kept asking: “So where’s that batshit crazy dude driving around the red minibus?” When they saw me, they would say:
“Tough guy!”
I Helped People During Daytime and Sobbed at Nights
I really planned on leaving the next day, but air raids got to working in the city. Russians bombed the hospital, Pryazovskyi State Technical University (PSTU), and civilian homes.
I stayed in Mariupol and already then observed how people survived without food. People in the bomb shelters stayed there, afraid to come out or go to the restroom.
Old folks cried often. I would come up and say: “It’s going to be ok. All will end soon.” I tried to take away the negativity and spread positive thinking.
I started writing about my days in Mariupol via messenger after two nights of air strikes. I got a building-jack ready in case cinder blocks crashed. I didn’t know if we were going to make it or not.
Every night started the same for me: I would hide away somewhere and sob like a baby. I felt pain when I thought about my own children and about children hiding in the shelters. The pain was unbearable: I didn’t understand why kids had to suffer like this?
The nights were the worst for me because during the day I was taking away people’s pain to give them hope in return, and come morning, I would smile again…
It was very hard.
Others handled it differently. We had this young couple in the bomb shelter. I was on a night watch with the guy one time. We stood and listened to the sky. I remembered I had chewing gum in my pocket. I offered him a piece, he took it and started chewing it. His girlfriend came out:
“What’s with the chewing gum? Are you planning on going somewhere for a visit?” And she goes off on him.
I listened for a while, then said:
“I gave him a piece of gum. It calms the nerves.”
She left. The guy turned to me:
“Thanks, bro. She would have eaten my brains out with her jealousy.”
I wouldn’t have even guessed it was possible during a war. No one has taken a bath in two weeks, it’s been freezing out, and the last thing anyone needed was stepping out on his girlfriend.
There was a young girl in the shelter, who didn’t believe I was going to leave and come back once more. So, she went on trying to convince everyone I wasn’t coming back voluntarily into Hell. When I did come back, she was the first to run up and hug me: “Misha, my dearest!”
Other bomb shelters were worse off, plus the organization over there was lame.
Once I came with humanitarian aid to one such bomb shelter. I gave away everything I had on me and decided to take a look inside. There, in the backroom, two young mothers with a child asked if I had any food on me to share. It turned out that everyone there was for himself, no organization of any kind. It was fucked up!
I tried talking some sense into people over there, but it didn’t work. All the food and medicine were snatched up by then.
I popped in into other bomb shelters and noticed that people didn’t have enough cigarettes. It wasn’t my first trip to Mariupol by then, so I came packing. I took all my cigarettes and said:
“Hey fellas. All the cigarettes are with them two mothers. You wanna smoke, you bring food in exchange for smokes.”
Those moms didn’t smoke, and by then you could exchange cigarettes for everything, not just food.
During my fifth trip, one mother came out and asked me if I evacuated people from occupied territories. I nodded. She asked:
“How much?”
“Free of charge.”
She kept hugging me. Her child was handicapped. They still had evacuation buses then, but she couldn’t get a spot. It’s possible she just had no money.
Still, one of the worst memories was on my first trip. I saw a man coming out of the bomb shelter to warm up the food for his child. He was killed in the air strike. His wife asked me to wrap a duct tape around his arm and write down his first and last name, and to take the wedding band off his finger. I couldn’t do it.
The duct tape was done by a friend of mine, and the ring from the swollen hand was taken down with much difficulty by the wife.
She didn’t go outside anymore. She was too scared. And her husband was left in the street.
God’s Mercy Helped Me Survive and a Family of Three Reunite
On my first trip to Mariupol Christian Society in Chernivtsi provided me with humanitarian aid.
I’m still in shock. Can you imagine some guy showed up without papers, on some red minibus and said: “Load it up. I’m going to Mariupol.” And they went: “Ok. Let’s pray first.” I prayed with them because there can never be too much praying. Besides everything else, they gave me six small Bibles with the New Testament. I placed two in each of my front pockets to protect me from shrapnel or bullets.
On March 23rd a young family showed up at our bomb shelter: a woman, her husband, and their child.
We took them in. The man said he was going to get his mother and left.
I came out an hour and a half later, walked around my parked minibus, and heard an explosion.
“Air!” I yelled, and we all ran back to the bomb shelter. I was last.
An impact wave from the hit on the hospital nearby literally threw me into the club. Now I know what it feels like–a warm soft pillow.
The minibus covered us from most of the shrapnel that was headed in our direction. The impact wave took out the side door and the front window of the minibus. A piece of shrapnel hit the little heart on the hood directly.
When we settled inside, the young lady whose husband went to get his mother, ran up to me all hysterical:
“He is somewhere over there! We must find him!!” she yelled.
“You are not going anywhere”, I responded. I explained to her that in over an hour he could have been way gone from the epicenter of the explosion. Plus, he said he was going to be back tomorrow.
Tomorrow came, but the guy didn’t show up. The woman started crying.
I was getting ready to hit the bomb shelters in the area to pick up all the pregnant ladies and bring them over to our shelter. We had better conditions and I could evacuate them all from there later. That young lady:
“I’m coming with.”
“What are you, a fool? You have a kid on your hands. Take care of him. Everything will be fine.” I said. Then I took out one of those Bibles and gave it to her. “Pray. It was God’s mercy that I made it here. Take the Bible.”
When I came back a couple of hours later, I saw her still reading it with a flashlight, praying.
Her husband came back that night with his mother. The wife cried from joy for a long time afterwards.
We evacuated all of them later.
How I Saved Russian Commander’s Ass One Day And Then He Saved Mine
Thanks to my business experience, I occasionally found common grounds with Russians.
On my second trip, I left early in the morning and took my friend along. We leveled with a car parked on the side of the road. A man dressed in uniform came out with two handguns, like Rambo, pointing them both at us.
I knew about the looters working the areas between the check points, so I got nervous he would take all humanitarian aid.
I stopped the car. As he came up, he requested that we help him to jump start his car.
It started after joint efforts, and as a thank you he handed me a bottle of vodka. I don’t drink but took it so we could be on our way.
During my third trip to Mariupol my friend and I were on Zelinskiy Street in the city center, when suddenly, we got hit with mortar fire. We ran from one walkup to another, using garbage cans as cover from shrapnel along the way. It was a fucking nightmare. I lost my papers somewhere in between.
I noticed my papers were gone only when I was driving out of Mariupol. At a check point, I got harassed and thought I was done for. Out of despair, I tried to figure out which of the passengers was going to take the wheel instead of me. Suddenly, a passing car hits the breaks and stops.
That Rambo guy came out: “Whadda fuck you doin’? I told you leave the red bus alone and don’t give him no trouble. He’s alright!”
Turned out “Rambo” oversaw seven check points, and the first one did check me out back then. The rest of them we passed with no problems. I thought God must really love me then.
Another time “Rambo” came through again. We ran out of fuel, and he ordered the guys to fill us up from their supply barrel.
This situation may seem positive or make Russians sound “more human”. Fuck that. I saw a great deal of bullet ridden cars between the check points. And that same “Rambo” told jokes about shooting our people.
Morally it was fucking hard to keep up familiarity and keep a leveled distance. If I told this commanding officer “You will be going home very soon” and not the other one, I don’t think you would be reading this story right now.
Getting out of Mariupol, I Almost Froze My Butt Off
To evacuate, we had to get the cars ready. Many had issues: some had chargers stolen, some were burnt. I decided to stay one more day to help organize more transportation.
I didn’t know if we would be driving over mines, so we disassembled stainless steel tables and covered the bottoms of our vehicles with them to protect people from shrapnel. We found gasoline, got the chargers from the fire alarms in the abandoned offices, connected and put them in the cars.
We were taking mothers and children first. We drove to Drama Theater where cars from other districts gathered as well and made a large evacuation column in the end.
We left Mariupol. My minibus still had no side door and a missing front window. I got cold right away, was sitting behind the wheel wearing black sunglasses, like Basilio the Cat, wrapped myself up the best I could. I took my glasses off every time we approached the check point, didn’t want to look suspicious.
Men were examined every time for belt tracks, tattoos, and had their phones checked. I was left alone by now. They remembered my red minibus.
“Going back?”
“Yes.”
“Did you deliver your stuff?”
“I did.” I showed them a video because I was told at one check point, I was fucked if I couldn’t prove the goods were for civilians, and not for soldiers. I had commented each video: “Look, these are peaceful residents. Here they are taking food. People, smile for the camera. See, peaceful civilians.”
Russians really watched the whole videos. They simply couldn’t believe I wasn’t delivering drones or ammunition but food.
So, we made it to Zaporizhzhia, a city controlled by Ukraine. Unfortunately, we came during curfew and had to curse out local cops at first at the entrance to the city so they would let us drive to the nearest warm transit location.
Five Evacuations Later, I Pissed Russians Off Too Much
When I got warm again, I realized my story wasn’t going to end here. My friends, men, and children including kids of those mothers who evacuated already with their younger siblings were still in Mariupol. Those mothers would come up to me and ask: “Misha, my child is still there. When will you go back?” I looked in their eyes and realized I had to go again.
Every time I came back, I saw there were still many children in the bomb shelters. How could I tell them I wasn’t going to come back to get them?
And that’s how everything got rolling. Unwillingly I happened to be in the center of events and in the center of media attention along with it. I arrived at Mariupol again and was told that there were many wounded kids who needed to be picked up and adults had no food left.
So, I drove there because no one else could.
There were some who thought they could buy me. They dropped a list of addresses and said: “Bring these people, and you’ll get so fucking rich, your life will be a fucking dream.” I got into arguments with many important people over this.
Drivers who were on the make tried to get paid working evacuations. Then DPRers got a whiff of it and started doing it themselves. So, the drivers disappeared very quickly along with their buses. This was one of the main reasons why volunteers stopped coming to Mariupol.
When I came to Zaporizhzhia after my fourth trip to Mariupol, Ukrainian Security Services became very interested in me. It raised red flags I was driving there too often and mostly by myself. When it became clear to me that I wasn’t going to convince them and the clearing process was going to take long, I noticed a young woman and a cameraman making a video or something for TV.
I called them up and started explaining my situation. The military guys moved on. Turned out the woman was a producer. She was filming a series about the war, and every episode was silent. She asked me if she could come along to Mariupol with me the next time.
I took her with me on my sixth trip. She decided to go without her cameraman and to record a video on her iPhone. I told her if anyone asked questions the phone was mine. To make it believable, I recorded a short video of myself saying: “Thank you so much for the gift!” I asked the producer lady to delete everything else on it.
At a check point on the way to Mariupol, the soldier started inspecting the phone. It had a fucking pin code. I tried unblocking it with my face ID instead with no success. The soldier got so angry:
“Where the fuck did you steal it?”
“I just gave it to the young lady to erase some stuff.” I said.
“Go in the corner.”
Next to me were detained earlier a father and his older son. Sounded like they had envelopes with money on them. The man got a beating starting with his legs.
The situation was calling for some fear on my part, at least nervousness, but I was calm. See I took Nebilet earlier and was still under the effect. I was prescribed a nerve relaxant after a heart attack and two stents three years ago.
It was my turn.
“We’re taking you in for interrogation. You make a peep you get shot.” one of the soldiers told me.
As soon as I was alone with that producer girl, I asked her:
“Why the fuck did you set up a pin?”
“Misha, I forgot. I’m sorry. This is your sixth trip, so the pin is all digits 6.”
“Fuck, that’s symbolic.”
As it turned out, they were taking us to the District Department of Internal Affairs. I was trying to save the girl from getting taken outside the city, so I told her: “Sit here quietly and don’t come out.”
A DPRer was coming toward us. I came out of the bus and asked him:
“Do you guys need antibacterial wipes?”
“Hell yes.”
I distracted him, and we walked away from the girl.
Then interrogation came. Fingerprints. Long and tiring procedure. They let us go, but without permission to drive into the city. I had a load in the car to deliver, so I tried to come to some terms with another DPRer, but they were onto me:
“Did I not make myself clear? I do not wanna see you here again, otherwise you will be driving straight to the basement, with your face this big, got it? We don’t need your humanitarian help over here.”
What were we supposed to do? To get into the city through Melekino? And if we were to get filtered back to these guys? No coming out of it for me.
We drove to Melekino but stopped at the outpatient department there. They had many people there. We unloaded medication, diapers, baby food. I found a woman who took responsibility for the distribution.
That outpatient department had evacuation buses coming there later to take civilians out of Mariupol. On the way back, we picked up some people at Mangush and left the occupied territories for the last time.
I Desperately Want to Get Back to Business, But I Can’t, Not Yet
Here, in Ivano-Frankivsk, when curfew brings silence and one of my four children wakes up in the middle of the night and starts crying, I go and make him feel better. Most of the time, he saw a nightmare or wet the bed. I see he is safe, exhale, and immediately think of the kids who stayed in Mariupol.
They also woke up and cried in the middle of the night, but from fear. And they are still there. I evacuated as many as I could. But not all.
Occasionally we hear air sirens over here. But I don’t know what that is. I am not familiar with phone alerts for danger.
I do know the sound of the bomber above your head. Every time I hear a plane passing by, I pray it’s one of ours. I pray nothing hits us. And everything I went through in the bomb shelter I begin to experience all over again.
Over there, any aviation sound meant bombs were dropping. There was nothing above our bomb shelter. I kept thinking: “If a missile hits us, everyone with me, including children, will be dead.”
Just like the children who died in the Drama Theater. It was the only place I didn’t bring people from there to our bomb shelter. I brought apples, condensed milk, and groceries there to the kids and nursing mothers. People lived in the rooms of the theater. And there were so many of them that even if you brought a sixteen-wheeler loaded with food, it wouldn’t be enough.
When the theater was gone, I drove by the place once and saw that the floors where people lived were no more. I don’t know what people who made the decision to bomb it were thinking at the time. There was no military there. Just civilians. What for? Why? I don’t get it.
I learned recently that Israel is under a constant threat of potential rocket attacks. To protect itself, the country built the most powerful anti-aircraft system.
I often think how the lives of tens of thousands of civilians of Mariupol could have been saved if a modern anti-aircraft system had been set up in time there, as well as in the entire East of Ukraine. If only we could get our hands on it! We are a peaceful nation that just wants to live, be able to protect itself, and do everything possible for it.
I do want to come back into business. I have a ton of projects and work I left because of the war. But for now, I’m helping everyone I evacuated and collect donations for it here: https://help-mariupol.com/
But you have to be able to live and breathe volunteering. I want to come back to my business, but when the war is on, more Ukrainians will need help. More Ukrainians will be dying from the air raids and senseless Russian cruelty.
Yes, our soldiers are our heroes—especially those who defend Mariupol. But heroism alone is not enough against such a horde. I see that more and more countries are providing us with necessary weapons to help us win this war. Yes, it’s better late than never, but it’s also better to intensify it.
But for the people of Mariupol, any help will come too late.
Their lives are broken forever.
The conversation with Myhailo took place in April 2022. On May 2, he drove to Mariupol once again to evacuate people from Azovstal. On May 11, he reached Ukraine-controlled Zaporizhzhya with a few dozens of women and kids he managed to evacuate from the city. He continues to provide help to people in sieged Mariupol and occupied villages nearby.
This is the story of Myhailo Puryshev: Instagram | Facebook | TikTok.
Interviewed by Nastya Popandopulos. Written by Max Sushchuk. Translated by Natasha Sennett.
