A BRDM-2 armored vehicle for the defense of Kyiv.

The BRDM-2 is an armored reconnaissance vehicle. Sergii Mirnyi's radiation reconnaissance platoon worked in the Zone in vehicles like this in 1986. That is why, even before the invasion, we bought two BRDM-2s: to show visitors how the liquidators served. Where the dosimeter sat in the vehicle, how the reconnaissance soldiers set out to work, how the armor protected them from radiation. They were museum pieces in full running order.

There was a second reason, which Yaroslav Yemelianenko voiced half in jest: with a neighbor like ours, an armored vehicle is better than an ordinary one. Three weeks before the invasion he told Radio Liberty that these were museum pieces that "come in handy if anything happens."

It did. When the "neighbor" approached Kyiv, we took the BRDM standing at VDNH out of storage. It would not start.

Help came from Mykola, nicknamed Karym. He appeared on the half-abandoned grounds as the sirens wailed, saw that the BRDM would not start, put his own business aside and drained the gasoline from his own moped. That did not help - so the two of them unscrewed and cleaned the spark plugs. Karym brought a battery jump starter and gave everyone hot tea. Three hours of repairs - and the vehicle started at the first turn. The armor was marked with yellow ribbons.

"Our people are wonderful. We are like an angry anthill: helping each other, we will bite to death anyone who attacks our anthill," Yaroslav wrote at the time.

The vehicle went to the OUN Territorial Defense unit commanded by Mykola "Burevii" Kokhanivskyi. "Now our unit will be mobile and ride on armor," Bohdan Tytskyi wrote that day, thanking Valeriia Lobach, Yaroslav Yemelianenko and Kateryna Aslamova. "Now our once-tourist BRDM guards the peace of the city," Kateryna wrote. At first the vehicle defended Kyiv, later it went east.

The russians captured the second vehicle at the exit from the Zone, shot at it a little and abandoned it. When they were driven out, soldiers called us: could they take it, patch it up and put it to work? Gladly. But it could not be restored: while it stood there, it had been stripped for parts - this time by our own side.