Ksenia Bureviy

Glib Stryzhko Let’s start with your name and call sign. Please tell us a little about yourself and your service experience.

Ksenia Bureviy I am Ksenia, my call sign is Bureviy (from Ukr. storm, strong wind, – ed. note). I’ve been in the military for two years. It will be exactly two years on August 1, 2025. I started out in a volunteer battalion and have since been officially enlisted and signed a contract as a service member. I thought long and hard about what I can do, and one friend suggested I start with a volunteer battalion. At first, I wrote about them as a journalist. One month later, I was joining them as a recruit. I knew I was going to work with UAVs and aerial reconnaissance. Two weeks later, I joined the unit liberating Robotyne. During this op, I worked on a Mavic drone, but after that I switched to UAVs. After this first experience, I decided to sign the contract.

Glib Stryzhko Why did you decide to join a volunteer unit? It’s basically piracy. If you die, no one will know.

Ksenia Bureviy I spent just over a year in the volunteer battalion, I just had no other choice. If you’re a petite woman, and you want a combat position, you will never get it. Volunteering was the best way for me to get some experience and see if I can do it at all. Who knows when this war will end? I needed to know I’m ready to devote my life to the military long-term. Of course, the fear of death is strong. Back then, volunteer units didn’t have good equipment. You sit there under fire, with your grenades and FPVs flying, while your comrade is trying to operate a drone. When we had a break, the comrade smoked, and I opened the Bible on my phone, started reading, and thought, how sad it would be to die before I have the chance to eat at McDonalds one last time.

Glib Stryzhko What led you to the decision to join the military officially? What does your service look like today?

Ksenia Bureviy After five months in the volunteer unit, I went to a to a Christian community in France to pray. But already after three very spiritual days I realized I have to sign the contract. And since the unit didn’t want to sign up, I told the commander I will have to leave. He was very understanding and offered me different options to transfer. For some reason, I didn’t pass one of the security checks at first, so the sign-up process took me nine months, which is very long. After a while, I complained about it to a friend from the Armed Forces. The next day, he called me and said: I told my commander about you, he wants to talk. Would you consider joining our unit? The call went great, I knew immediately: I have to do this. This time around, the sign-up process was quick, and I’m proud to be serving in this company.

Glib Stryzhko You’ve already partly answered the question of what you’re focusing on these days. Now tell me, what brings you joy right now?

Ksenia Bureviy What I enjoy most is taking out enemy vehicles and successful missions. I will explain. We don’t work at the front line, we’re on a deeper level. Some of our colleagues go on missions and deliver results daily — repelling assaults, inflicting casualties on enemy personnel, and destroying their armored vehicles. It’s different for us. Sometimes, we would do our job, but there would be no result. But then, after a week – bam! It happens less often, but the importance of it is great, if you look at the big picture. In moments like these, I feel incredible joy.

Glib Stryzhko Don’t be surprised if the conversation won’t be very linear. Next, tell me, is there a place you like to revisit in your mind because it brings you joy?

Ksenia Bureviy I really want to return to Donetsk, definitely Mariupol, and Avdiivka. These three locations are very dear to me. Donetsk, mainly because I think of the time before 2014. I’m from Donetsk Oblast, and everyone there wanted to go to Donetsk because of better infrastructure, different initiatives. It was cool. I would love to return to Donetsk pre-2014. Donetsk now is scary. Mariupol — Marik — is where I spent some happy years of my life. We went there with my family, when Donetsk was already occupied, but Mariupol was liberated. We felt alive there. Plus, there’s the sea. Imagine, you arrive at the train station, and the first thing you can do is go to the sea and enjoy the view. Also, I associate the vibe of activist life and volunteering with Mariupol. Meeting the Right Sector people in Avdiivka really changed my life and my world view. I have always been very patriotic, but like any person from Donbas, my views on the Right Sector were affected by Russian propaganda. After meeting Da Vinci Wolves and Dmytro Kotsiubailo himself, I completely switched to Ukrainian, and my views were settled.

Glib Stryzhko You’re still quite young, and you’ve been actively serving in the military for two years now. I don’t know how often you’re currently rotating or moving between the front lines and more rear-area cities, but what helps you maintain a sense of being alive during rotations and combat? I mean, the realization that, phew, okay, I’m still alive?

Ksenia Bureviy You know, I feel like I’m on the TV-show Seal Team. Because all the shots there are either guys are on the move or in the gym. We’re literally the same. We’re either on the positions, working, or back repairing the vehicle, handling tech and upgrades. And when everything’s done — combat tasks and rear work — we go train at the gym with the guys. It’s like Groundhog Day, but a good one, it actually motivates me.

Glib Stryzhko Do you guys have any other rituals in the unit apart from that?

Ksenia Bureviy We’re all coffee addicts. Except for our commander. We often would go have a coffee on our way to the positions, unless the commander didn’t want to. So, we joked: if there’s no coffee, there will be no work. The commander finally caved in, and was like, okay, go get your coffee. So now, whenever we have the time, we get filter coffee, or a flat white, fancy stuff. Oh, and another thing! Once, we returned from days off, and one the guys said: I got a hookah. At first, we were like, what are we going to do with that? But now, we take it with us, when we go to our positions. Once, we forgot to take food, but took the hookah. I have never smoked in my life, so once I got lost in the woods after smoking hookah. I radioed the guys, and was like, where do I go? We haven’t eaten anything, we’ve worked for twelve hours, we only had water and hookah. That was fun.

Glib Stryzhko Okay, and when it comes to your personal traditions of joy, is there anything that makes you smile, something you do regularly, or any other rituals you have?

Ksenia Bureviy Yes, the old ladies of the Donetsk Oblast. I keep meeting older women and men, exchanging contact information. They call me, I bring them food. I hang out with the grandmas and grandpas of the Donetsk Oblast. Classical scenario.

Glib Stryzhko How come you meet them?

Ksenia Bureviy I want to help. They are very friendly, but mostly lonely. I have a friend, Ms. Valentyna; she’s my neighbor, and she can’t walk. I try to make her life better, take her for walks, when I can. When she wants to listen to her Soviet music, I turn it on. Just recently, I was jogging and saw an older woman who could barely walk. I asked her where she was going and offered to take her — to the pension fund. What I find the coolest is when these older women are so elegant, wear headscarves, and I love giving them compliments. It has so much life in it. They don’t get it at first, but I keep talking. They often ask me (in Russian, – ed. note): Are you from the West? And I go: No, I’m a local, from here! And I tell them I’m from Donetsk Oblast. They don’t believe me! Conversations like these are filled with life, I love it.

Glib Stryzhko Okay! What has been the most unexpected joy in your life?

Ksenia Bureviy I joined my unit and made a deal with the company commander that I’d work with one specific team, guys operating in the Kherson region. I spent about a month with them, everything was going great. Kherson wasn’t where I wanted to be, but I worked there anyway. I even lived in Mykolaiv for a while. Then one day, my commander calls me: “I’ve got some news for you.” He says he’s pulling me out of that team and sending me to Donetsk Oblast, where I’d actually wanted to be. At first I hesitated: I’d just settled in with my crew, and this meant starting over. He told me to think about it. And I decided — yeah, it’s a good move, I’ll go. That turned out to be the biggest joy. Somehow it all worked out: a new crew was forming, I got reassigned there, same role I wanted, working with equipment I was interested in. When I arrived, every time we went out into the fields, I’d catch myself saying, “God, it’s so beautiful here.” Just because it’s Donetsk Oblast. The guys teased me for it all the time, like, “the sky is so blue because it’s Donetsk,” “the sun shines because it’s Donetsk.” It’s just that feeling of joy from being in your own land, you know.

Glib Stryzhko Sounds beautiful. You’ve mentioned that you read the Bible. How does faith affect you views on life, on the search for joy in it? Tell me more about it.

Ksenia Bureviy Before 2014, I was a firm believer. After that, I changed. I asked myself all the time: if there’s God, why does he let this happen? Why doesn’t He hear my prayers? I keep asking for my city to be liberated, but it wouldn’t happen. I almost stopped believing. In 2021, I felt that something was brewing, when Russian troops gathered on the border of the Rostov Region. I knew that things were going to hell, and I needed to prepare mentally. I didn’t think there would be a full-scale war, but I was sure that Donetsk and Luhansk Oblast would be caught in whatever was going to happen. It was very hard for me to accept. But then, the full-scale invasion started, and on March 9, a good friend of mine died. Within just two weeks. How am I supposed to believe in God after this? He was such a good person. My relationship with God was ruined, there’s nothing left, I felt abandoned. In 2022, while I was actively volunteering, about six months in I was invited to go to France, to a monastery in Taizé, a Christian community. I didn’t want to go at first. I thought, they’re just Christians, what could they really tell me? Will they have any answers for me? But I went — and I found them. And my life changed a lot after that. That’s when God entered my life. For the first time in a long while, I was able to tell Him honestly that I was hurt, that I was angry. How could You let this happen? I finally said it out loud and felt that He heard me, understood me. Since then, a lot has changed. I became genuinely curious to understand the Creator and to see Him more clearly. And one of the ways to do that is through reading the Holy Scripture. So now, I try to read Scripture every day. I like noting down certain passages, trying to understand how Christianity sees the Creator, how it understands logic and meaning. Faith gives me a sense that even when things are very hard, there’s something to lean on. I often turn to the example of Jesus Christ. Before, I didn’t think much about it — it was superficial, like: some guy, crucified, so what? But the deeper I read and reflect, the more I see Him as both human and divine, someone who could do anything, who could heal… But He chose to be with humans, with those who betrayed him, to forgive them, and most importantly, to live through a big amount of pain for those who he loved. I get chills when I think about how He went to talk to God before He was crucified, and said to him: if it’s possible, take this burden from me, I don’t want this, but let it be as You will. But he was still crucified. In his human body, He goes through all that pain, the betrayal of those closest to Him, and still forgives them. Out of great love, He understands why it must be so. He endures suffering and pain for the sake of love. And for me, that’s a powerful example: what Jesus shows through His life, and the impact it has, I see it as a gift. Above all, it’s faith — not religion, but faith — that brings me acceptance. Acceptance of reality as it is. For example, my family is in occupied territory, my hometown is occupied, I haven’t been there for years. We’re losing Kostiantynivka; it’s almost surrounded. If it gets occupied, so will the rest of Donetska Oblast. But I choose to meet it with acceptance. Yes, this is the reality, but my love for all of it remains. It stays with me. My love for people doesn’t go anywhere. We’ll keep fighting anyway. There’s still joy here and now, still so much life. You feel it even in small moments, talking to locals and asking, “If orcs occupy your land, what will you do?” and they answer, “We’ll poison them.” There’s so much life in that. At the core, faith is what helps me hold on.

Glib Stryzhko So, do I understand correctly, reading the Bible is the ritual that brings you inner happiness and peace?

Ksenia Bureviy Yes, exactly. Because you stop seeing the world as just me, my life, my death, and start seeing it through a bigger sense of meaning. Maybe that meaning doesn’t actually exist. Maybe it’s something I imagined. But it’s easier, and even happier, to live when there is meaning. Like the idea that Donbas became part of my life for a reason — that I was meant to become a soldier, to be in this role. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t accepted for nine months during the enlistment process — because I wasn’t meant to be somewhere else, but here. That gives a lot of meaning. And the Bible, in that sense, becomes a strong source of support.

Glib Stryzhko If you were asked to explain what joy means to you in the midst of war, what would you say?

Ksenia Bureviy War takes away many things and brings a lot of pain, but it also gives a lot of life. For me, the war is first and foremost the gift of understanding what is more important. Before February 2022, I had plans along the lines of getting into Harvard, founding a start-up, you know, material things, great success, realizing my potential and working really hard… But when your friends start to die, you pause and ask yourself, what is important at all? Studying at Harvard and making Forbes 30 under 30? Or not losing your people, being with them and, worst case, dying with them? For a long time, I asked myself this question, but the last drop was the death of a close friend, my mentor Dmytro Kotsiubailo, who changed my way of thinking completely. There was no turning back, I knew: I have to go to war, there won’t be any other reality. What gives joy amidst war? The understanding that reality is what it is, and we can’t choose any other. Yes, I would love to go to Harvard, live like the Europeans, not think about war and all that shit, but we do live in this reality, and the reality of heroes, of people who die for our country. What can be more important? The realization that you are here, alongside the finest sons and daughters of your country, not just for the sake of it, not just for Ukraine today — you are here for the Ukraine of the past, for all our ancestors. It’s so inspiring, it gives so much meaning, and even the thought that our ancestors once stood on these positions, the positions of Donetsk Oblast, with the same goals as we do — that makes so much sense. That’s the sense of it all.

Glib Stryzhko What does joy smell like?

Ksenia Bureviy Brilliant question. Coffee and wormwood. There’s wormwood in the fields of Donbas; so the scent is warm, with a hint of wormwood.

Glib Stryzhko Just like a day in July. What memory keeps you going during tough times?

Ksenia Bureviy Man, I don’t know, this is hard. When my dad calls me and says, “Your dad did 250 push-ups today, how many did you do?” That really helps me.

Glib Stryzhko Nice! And when you feel alive, how do you feel it in your body?

Ksenia Bureviy Through breathing. Breathing, above all — the ability to take a deep breath and feel that inner peace. In other words, simply a peaceful joy, as the Scriptures say.

Glib Stryzhko What brings you joy, a sense of elation, and a zest for life?

Ksenia Bureviy The success of completed tasks and burning orcs.

Glib Stryzhko Final question. What is joy like? Describe it in colors, shapes, and every detail.

Ksenia Bureviy Spilled diesel. When diesel spills, there’s this puddle on the asphalt. It’s very bright, purple, pink, and sparkles in a really cool way. To me, it’s like something out of a magical world.