A man from Ukraine hitchhiked 500 exhausting kilometres across the country to spend barely 24 hours with his wife and two kids before being sent in to fight the next day.
Maxim Lietova, 38, travelled the 500 kilometres to his family’s home in western Ukraine by walking, using public transportation, and hitching rides with truck drivers.
Maxim travelled all night and arrived at 6 a.m. on Monday, just in time to surprise his wife Olga, 33, and their two daughters Masha, 6, and Miskha, 2, when they woke up.
Maxim had been given a little window of time to go before being dispatched to the front lines to combat Russian forces.
Maxim told The Telegraph, “I tried all I could to come home,” adding that he would never take those times with his family for granted.
“When I was a youngster and my Mum and Dad said goodnight to us, we didn’t grasp the value of this gesture,” said Maxim, who hadn’t seen his kids since March. I now understand the meaning of this statement better.
“At this point, I yearn for the world to slumber under a starry sky.”
Maxim only had a brief 24-hour visit with his family before being sent back to the battle lines.
Before Maxim left to fight against Russia, pictures of the couple hugging each other and kissing were taken while he was still in his army uniform.
Since the conflict started six months ago, the pair has travelled great distances to visit one another, even if it only results in brief encounters.
Olga surprised Maxim last month by driving 466 miles across Ukraine and just spending 20 minutes with him after he got back from military training in the UK.
Maxim recalled staring in awe as Olga raced towards him and his companions along a road in a blue dress. As they both sobbed in relief, Maxim, filled with emotion, takes her off her feet and cuddles her.
Soldiers serving on the front lines for months at a time without being able to come home have shattered hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian families.
Olga and Maxim are aware that it’s possible they won’t see one other again for a while after their most recent 24-hour period together. Maxim claims it is his responsibility to help Ukraine, despite how difficult it is to leave his wife and kids behind.
Maxim, who worked as a sales manager for Nestle before to the conflict, said as he clutched his wife’s hand at their house in western Ukraine, “I believe it’s the obligation of every man in Ukraine to protect our nation.”
“What would my wife and kids think if I was scared of an air raid siren?”
In Kryvyi Rih, the city in central Ukraine where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was raised, Maxim and Olga met at school but did not fall in love until ten years ago.
The pair has never spent more than two days apart in those ten years, so they seize every opportunity to visit one another while the war is going on.
However, Maxim is uncertain as to when he will next see Olga and their two kids.
Just one day after their reunion, Maxim and Olga share a kiss before he is dispatched to the front lines to battle Russian forces.
On Tuesday, he joined his fellow soldiers on the front lines as Ukrainian military continued to fiercely repel Russian troops.
Intense combat has broken out in Kherson, Ukraine’s southern province, where a counteroffensive was launched on Monday.
At the beginning of the invasion six months ago, Russian soldiers took control of the majority of the territory and its provincial capital, which has the same name.
Since the fighting has virtually ceased in the eastern Donbas area, commentators have predicted for weeks that fighting would move south to end the standoff before winter.
Retaking Kherson is seen by Ukraine as essential to thwarting Russian plans to annex further land farther west, which might ultimately shut off its access to the Black Sea.
An ally of Ukraine, Britain, said that Ukrainian troops in the south had driven Russian front-line soldiers back in several locations by taking advantage of Russia’s porous defences. Ukraine claimed to have achieved “success” in three regions of the region, but it withheld more information.
The president’s office in Kyiv said in its morning report that “combat persisted throughout the night” in Kherson and that a blast that occurred overnight in the Mykolaiv region left one person dead and two wounded.
The Ukrainian forces suffered “serious casualties” and were “forced back by Russian soldiers,” according to the Russian defence ministry, which said Kyiv’s efforts to push its counteroffensive had “failed.”
The Dnipro River is a vital supply route for Russian troops, and the Ukrainian president said that its forces had demolished “nearly all significant bridges” across it, leaving only pedestrian crossings.