Alla Senchenko

Glib Stryzhko Amazing. Tell us a little about your time in the service. How did you get involved, and where did you serve?

Alla Senchenko I joined the service in 2018, signing a contract with the 24th King Danylo Brigade. My first position was as a cook. It was tough, and it’s hard to switch to a different position. Eventually, I served as a supply clerk in a machine-gun platoon. I signed up in November, and in early February we were already heading to the combat zone. Kurakhove, Novomykhailivka. Our first losses. It took me a while to deal. Then my mother passed away in March. I got divorced, my mother passed away, and I had to adjust to life in the military and in the combat zone. It was a huge challenge for me.

Glib Stryzhko Did you sign a new contract after yours ended in 2021?

Alla Senchenko No, I needed some time to get my life back on track after the divorce. But my contract ended in December, and in February, the full-scale invasion started. My suitcase was already packed. Which was good, as I didn’t have time to get comfortable. One day, I was walking down the street from my home, looking at the sky and thinking: it’s so beautiful, and I don’t want to die. But where do these thoughts come from? But things were already happening. I don’t know how some people could be so naive and think that it would pass, it wouldn’t. I knew it wouldn’t. And then the 24th Brigade placed me in the first-wave reserve. I had already received a summons stating that I had to report within 24 hours. So I was mobilized.

Glib Stryzhko What position this time?

Alla Senchenko Rifleman.

Glib Stryzhko What happened next? Did you go into combat right away?

Alla Senchenko I’ve already joined the 2nd Rifle Battalion of our Volyn Territorial Defense Unit. Belarus is close, we didn’t know where they would be attacking from. So, I stayed locally, especially considering how difficult transportation got when martial law was declared. In May, we went to Slovyansk, Lyman, into the combat zone in Donetska Oblast. It was hot and dangerous, extremely hard, which no one prepared you for. It was hell! Everything was flying, exploding. Everything. You could barely breathe. And there was nothing. No defensive structures. Nothing. And no way to build them — not even to dig in. After a while, we were informed that an attack was coming on May 23, that the Russians were advancing. We were to let the 79th Air Assault Brigade withdraw and cover their retreat— including their equipment — even if that meant letting Russian tanks pass. I was confused — what do you mean? I have nothing but a Kalashnikov. But what happened, happened. The area was occupied. Our unit was ordered to fall back to a designated point. To do that, we had to cross an entire city and had very low chances of survival. We were taken prisoner. Two of my comrades were shot in the head on the spot. I was transported to another location, interrogated, transferred again. They took interest in me. I was unusual, athletic. They were confused about my education. A marketing professional, cook, and even a tailor. “What do we do, guys?”. I was also wearing my uniform. It was all worn out and scorched, but very comfortable. It gave me power. But they beat me for it. They don’t understand that we get ourselves a comfortable uniform. Shoes. I was happy I didn’t wear the British uniform, they would have ripped it right off me. And then there were endless interrogations and endless transfers. I spent 8 months and 11 days in captivity.

Glib Stryzhko Were you in the occupied Ukrainian territories the whole time, or were you taken to Russia?

Alla Senchenko No, at first, we were somewhere close to Lyman. Luckily, it wasn’t a long ride – my hands were tied really tight, and there was a wounded man lying on top of me. When we were moved to Svatove, serious interrogation started. They made me sign some kind of statement, I didn’t even understand what it was at the time. I was in shock, so I thought I’d just answer honestly. I said yes. Later, lying on the bunk, I thought: what did I just agree to? It all depended on me. Once the interrogations started, my memory just shut down, I knew nothing. Those first days were brutal. They used every method they could, and it had that effect. The only thing I held onto was who I was and the key events I clearly remembered, and I stuck to that. I figured if I lied, they’d catch me and torture me even worse. Then, they moved us to Russia. At some point, they asked me how I got to Russian territory, and I was, like, wait, you moved me here. I don’t even know what day it is. You can say, I was “lucky”, because there was a journalist documenting everything, so at least there was proof that I existed, that I was alive.

Glib Stryzhko You said that March, after you started your service, was quite difficult because of a number of circumstances: your mother’s death, your breakup with your husband. And speaking of joy and support, is there anything or anyone who supports you?

Alla Senchenko I had a friend. We lived together in the military dorm, became friends, and supported one another. She’s from Luhansk, now living in Lutsk. We’re still tight. But the most powerful thing was traveling and nature! For example, you might be in the middle of a combat mission, but there’s still nature around you. I held on to that: birds chirping, grass growing, the sun shining, glinting in drops of dew. Those are small, simple joys — things that are always there, in any place. And travel, that’s the most powerful one. I traveled a lot during my service: across Europe, to Disneyland, to Paris. You know the saying — see Paris and die.

Glib Stryzhko Was there something you did in the unit that kept you going?

Alla Senchenko Our battalion played football. Different units played against each other on our days off, if you can call them that. Everyone was very athletic.

Glib Stryzhko Did you play too?

Alla Senchenko Yeah! I dove right in. And I played pretty well — they put me on the team. I’m up for anything! At least I’ll give it a shot. It might not work out, but I’ll try. And everything was great, really cool.

Glib Stryzhko You speak a lot about joy from sports. Why is that? How did sports affect your happiness? If I hear you right, your main objective was physical fitness.

Alla Senchenko Well, there’s a reason people say “a healthy body means a healthy mind.” It’s about staying active, switching your focus. You can’t control much on the outside, but here, you can at least control something, like building your own strength. It helps a lot, because you’re taking care of yourself. There are plenty of stressors in the army trying to wear you down. It’s even tougher, if you’re a woman. I showed up, this blonde girlie, God, so clueless. I’d been married for a long time, had this safe, calm life with my husband, and didn’t know how any of this worked. And then suddenly the army life hit me, with all its realities. I’d been in a relationship so long that I didn’t really know how to behave, where the boundaries were. You treat a man like he’s safe, you don’t switch into a different mode or realize that people can be different, even dangerous. So yeah, it was hard at first. But I looked for ways through it, with humor and attitude. Edgy woman.

Glib Stryzhko You got stationed when ceasefire began. Did your unit have any traditions back then to help relieve tension? I remember from my own experience that it’s a long time spent sitting in the trenches. You get used to it quickly, but then you have to think of something to not lose your mind.

Alla Senchenko I was lucky to have a crazy and eccentric neighbor. He sometimes came to us. We also had a kitty and a dog. We took in a puppy, but it didn’t take to us and wandered off the checkpoint. But the cat was stunning. Cats can sense every little sound. And I could tell just by looking at him: if he’s sleeping but his ears are twitching, I know that something’s going. Sometimes, we would just come together and tell jokes or just talk. In between shellings. A ceasefire that wasn’t, basically.

Glib Stryzhko Just sit and talk?

Alla Senchenko Well, I can’t tell you everything we did there! The boys came up with different stuff. We even grilles shashlyk. I don’t remember exactly how, but they made it possible to grill without giving ourselves away. There was no smoke, but there still was shashlyk.

Glib Stryzhko Okay. And now, when you’re essentially a civilian, how has your sense of happiness and joy changed since you left the military?

Alla Senchenko After my service, my life became very intense. It started even before I left the service. When I got into the Invictus Games, and was also taking part in “Silovyk Ukrainy,” I tried to stay as active as possible, and our command didn’t object to it. But then depression caught up with me. Even though life seemed to be improving and things were falling into place, post-trauma doesn’t just disappear. It hit me later. It’s a strange mix, when everything seems fine, but you don’t feel anything. Just irritation. So, I kept trying to pull myself out of it, to grab onto small things that still brought me joy.

Glib Stryzhko Now, I’d like to ask a philosophical question. Some people say that showing your emotions is a sign of weakness, while others say it’s a sign of strength. Personally, do you think joy is a sign of strength?

Alla Senchenko Yes. For me, allowing yourself to feel joy despite everything is a sign of strength. At first, it felt very sharp and difficult. You understand that you’ve been exchanged, while those who remained are being tortured. Some are dying on the battlefield, others from illness or wounds. You feel it so deeply that you almost forbid yourself to feel joy, because it seems unfair to those who have lost loved ones. But over time, I realized something else. It doesn’t have to be loud, you can smile quietly, feel that warmth inside, without showing it publicly. It can be a calm, quiet kind of joy, and it gives you strength. You meet a fellow soldier, you smile, you share a moment — and it lifts both of you. Joy has to exist, even during war. At first there’s shock, but then people adapt, some kind of instinct kicks in. You learn to live even in these conditions, to find reserves to endure a long war. Wars end eventually, but you can destroy yourself emotionally along the way. And for what? At first, I didn’t understand this, and it unsettled me. Joy felt wrong. But now I’ve come to accept it with understanding.

Glib Stryzhko It may sound paradoxical, but was there anything that brought you joy and helped you stay strong in captivity? Were you able to find joy in the little things every day, despite everything that was going on around you?

Alla Senchenko When you find yourself in a war zone, a strange mechanism kicks in. Basically, I’ve honed my skills in stressful situations, because I’m someone who lived through the ’90s. In other words, even under stressful conditions, I was able to feel okay and fine. Rituals helped me a lot. I worked out. I have a friend named Olya, she’s from Mariupol. We worked out together. Girls were grumbling at us that they’d be forced to do it too, and they’d rather not. And I thought, come on, we will be transferred many times, we must stay strong to survive! When you’re not getting enough food, you become exhausted. So yes, working out helped, you focused on a moment, there was no past and no future. This helped. Sometimes, we were allowed to read. We talked, played games with shovels. We discussed what we used to cook, our signature dishes. Taking care of yourself helped. When you wash yourself, your clothes, do something. The little things. We even fed mice with bread. We had mice, and one of them was particularly funny. We gave it a cracker, and she couldn’t fit through the hole! She put it in her mouth but still didn’t fit through. So she came back, put the cracker on the ground, gnawed a bigger hole, and shoved the cracker in. We had our pets. We got creative. Did laundry, adapted somehow. Talked to each other. Made things happen.

Glib Stryzhko Life went on.

Alla Senchenko Life still went on. And in Belgorod, oddly enough, it was almost “good”, as strange as that sounds. They would take us out to work. That alone gave me a kind of inner reserve I can’t even describe. We were held in a colony where the prison chief was relatively lenient toward Ukrainians. Of course, that didn’t apply to everyone, it all depended on the person. And then there were special forces coming in as well… they could do whatever they wanted. But just having the ability to walk in a straight line, go outside, walk to work and back, felt like happiness. We had more time to eat. We were taken to the canteen separately, and we would eat. Just eating and walking straight felt huge, we tried to hold on to that. I remember when I first arrived, I realized they might kill me. Or maybe I had already accepted that thought. There were intense interrogations. The FSB worked really hard “investigating”, scanning us, taking blood, everything. But even then, I tried to comfort myself: Well, at least there’s nothing falling from the sky. Even though later helicopters would fly over and sometimes things did land nearby. I tried to imagine life outside: people, weddings, normal days. I “had the honor” of spending time in solitary confinement more than once. One of our girls said: “God, it’s summer outside. I’m so beautiful, sitting here in such an ugly dress.” That kind of attitude.

Glib Stryzhko Did you manage to put any of the ideas you had while in captivity into practice once you returned to civilian life?

Alla Senchenko Yes. When we were held in Kursk, I started drawing dresses. I drew with the back to the door, so they don’t see, with whatever I could find. I would tell the girls: this is the dress I am going to make. And I did.

Glib Stryzhko What kind of dress was that?

Alla Senchenko I told the girls that I sewed dresses, and there’s this white-turquoise sundress with an open back. I had it on in Novomykhailivka. And when I went to Vuhledar, Dima came out of the store and saw them taking pictures of me. Dima came up to me and said: “They are taking pictures of you! They have never seen a dress like that!”

Glib Stryzhko Nice! I’d also like to ask: when was the last time you felt joy in a place where you least expected it?

Alla Senchenko I can recall two moments in captivity. A Dagestanian man once brought us a chocolate bar. Can you imagine what it means to receive chocolate in captivity, in such a cruel place? And this man was risking himself, his career, everything, just to bring it. That meant a lot. I’m the kind of person who can still show respect even to the enemy: even among people who act like beasts, there are sometimes glimpses of humanity. And there were moments like that, what you might call “an enemy with a human face.” From the very beginning of my captivity, there were also moments when some mortar soldiers noticed I wasn’t eating and asked: “What do you eat?” I said: fruit, dried fruit. And they brought me a small pack of dried fruit. I remember eating it slowly, with so much pleasure… They also brought apples and sweets. I didn’t even really want the sweets, but I saw they were military rations. And I thought: well, damn. These were mortar crews. Because what I know from our mortar crews, they’re a different kind of people. The enemy is far away for them; they operate at distance, with less direct hatred involved. It’s more technical: fire, strike, move on. Infantry is different. And you remember these small moments. Even when there were changes: one guard is a monster, another comes and… God… One calls you terrible names, in the most vulgar way, and then another shows up and says: “Ladies, don’t rush.” We were shocked! He wasn’t even mocking us or being sarcastic. Just normal. And I thought: God, people like this still exist. In contrast, you start valuing simple human decency, things you normally wouldn’t even notice when everything is fine.

Glib Stryzhko How would you describe or define what joy means to you in wartime?

Alla Senchenko I think, joy at war is the same for everyone. When your comrades come back from a mission with smaller losses. When everyone’s alive. Banged up and tired, but alive. Similarly, against all odds – under fire, when one has suffered terrible injuries and survived, despite all the odds. I believe that human life is the most precious thing. And one survives — that, in my opinion, is the greatest joy. When one is saved — that’s exactly it.

Glib Stryzhko Before we move on to the final round, I wanted to get back to the Invictus Games. What’s your best memory?

Alla Senchenko Skeleton. I actually almost decided not to compete. Yet as soon as I reached the finish line, I screamed: I want more! So many emotions! It was awesome! I thought, things like golf or snowboard, — there will be chances to try that again, but skelton? Also, a very emotional memory was getting hugged by Prince Harry. I adored his mother. To me, Princess Diana was the epitome of someone who was empathetic and had her own style. I really looked up to her. Her attitude toward people, her kindness, her difficult life. But despite everything, she still kept her charisma.

Glib Stryzhko But how did this hug with Prince Harry happen?

Alla Senchenko He came to our team at the opening ceremony. Took selfies with some of us, hugged or talked to others. What I loved the most that it was sincere and human. It wasn’t just a formality, he didn’t go away after that, he stayed and kept talking to us. That kind of directness is captivating. I said later: “God, our officials are less accessible than Prince Harry.”

Glib Stryzhko And now, a quick final round with short answers. What made you happier today?

Alla Senchenko I’m attending an awards ceremony as Ukraine’s top female veteran athlete later today.

Glib Stryzhko Great. What does joy smell like to you?

Alla Senchenko I suppose I associate joy with the sea. The sunset, the scent of warm air mingled with the sea breeze, those subtle smells: doughnuts baking somewhere, some treats sold on the beach… Flowers are blooming. It’s this beautiful blend that you breathe in.

Glib Stryzhko Alright, two final questions. What brings you joy, a sense of excitement, and a zest for life?

Alla Senchenko When I try something, and it works out. I tried wakeboarding, snowboarding –– it was pretty good. I made a dress. The moment when your effort bears results.