Before the war, I was the captain of FC Kramatorsk’s U-19 team — football was everything to me. Now it feels like a different life, and sometimes it’s hard to believe it was even real, because reality has changed so much.

After the war, I want to come home, step back onto the pitch, and finally live a normal life again — one where the biggest worries are training, matches, and plans for tomorrow, not losing brothers-in-arms and watching everything get destroyed.