Former Ukrainian soldiers move to Kelowna in search of better life – Okanagan [Video]

Just three days after Russia invaded Ukraine, Andrew Filipoviych volunteered to join Ukraine’s army.

“For me, it was very easy. I expected that the war would happen,” Filipoviych told Global News. “I wasn’t the one who didn’t believe that the war was possible and that we would be friends with Russia and all of those things.”

Filipoviych says he spent three months training in Lviv before being sent to Poltava, where he worked as a drone pilot.

However, four months in, he was badly injured after he was hit by three pieces of shrapnel from a tank shell.

“My bone was destroyed very badly, and it took seven months to consolidate the bone,” he said. “And as soon as I could (walk), I came back to my unit.”

After returning to duty, though, Filipoviych says his injury proved to be too much.

He retired from the military and, this past February, he and his wife decided to start a new …