August 2024 – Heros of the Month: Pete Fouche, Yana Rykhlitska and Iryna Tsybukh

This month, I am honoring Pete Fouche and two very brave Ukrainian women who were combat medics like Pete, Yana Rykhlitska and Iryna Tsybukh, all three of whom died in 2024 helping to save the lives of wounded Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

1. Pete Fouche

I have had the honor of working with Greg Terry of the Bethel Church in Greenville, PA and Prof. Darin Gerdes in raising money to buy and upgrade British Army armored LandRover ambulances for the Ukrainian Army. Pete’s video reports to us on the need for these vehicles prompted our efforts and several of those videos were later posted on Greg’s YouTube podcasts (The Greg Terry Experience). The vehicles have been delivered to the front as of this writing.

Pete was an extraordinary human being with an infectious smile and positive attitude, but he could also be very blunt, especially about the need for the West to provide greater support for the brave people of Ukraine. I say “people” in the inclusive sense because the sacrifices on the battlefield have been matched by those of the civilian population subjected to constant, deliberate, genocidal missile attacks by the Russian Air Force on apartment buildings, shopping centers, churches, hospitals and schools in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions, apart from having their children stolen (triggering an arrest warrant for Putin himself from the International Criminal Court) and regularly being slaughtered by the Russian Army in places like Bucha and Mariupol, as well as hundreds of cases of rape, gang rape, and torture in just the first few months of the Russian invasion and, of course, trying to salvage their lives after losing their husbands, daughters and fathers serving in the defense of Ukraine.

Pete grew up in South Africa initially serving in the South African Army and later became a British citizen in 2006, settling in Fulham, west London and working as a taxi driver. After the Russian invasion in 2022, Pete was sitting at home watching news reports showing footage of parents whose children were killed and decided he had to act. Moving to Ukraine, his first endeavor was to help establish a field hospital in Kyiv, then he co-founded Project Konstantin, which provides drones, vehicles, and food to soldiers in Ukraine and then later he became a combat medic taking care of both soldiers and civilians injured in the war. Pete personally was credited with saving over 200 Ukrainian soldiers, and also evacuating hundreds of civilians from the most dangerous frontline cities and towns, as well as bringing humanitarian aid to people trapped in those cities and towns.

Greg Terry met Pete in one of his early (and now numerous trips to Ukraine) while distributing aid from funds raised by his supporters on YouTube and they became close friends. (Greg and his driver Zhenya Matsutsa have also regularly risked their lives to distribute help on and very close to the battlefields and are also heroes in their own right.)

Pete was killed on the battlefield on June 27th at the age of 49. Greg Terry had the honor of comforting Pete’s family (his wife and 15 year old daughter) and the privilege of being asked by the family to organize a celebration of Pete’s life, which was held at Kyiv’s landmark IndependenceSquare, and attended by thousands of Ukrainians and included full military honors by the Ukrainian armed forces. Greg’s picture standing next to Pete’s coffin and comforting Yana from Project Konstantine as she hugged the coffin was circulated around the world by numerous news outlets.

Pete you were the best medic and best friend of Ukraine that anyone could ever ask for.

2. Yana Rykhlitska and Iryna Tsybukh

These two extraordinary women who volunteered as medics in the Ukrainian Army were both killed on the battlefield in March and June 2024. I urge you to Google their names and read their stories.

Yana was 29 and Iryna 25. Before becoming medics, they attended college and hoped to have careers in journalism and medicine. They were revered by the combat soldiers they cared for and well-known throughout Ukraine. So young, and so brave. It is hard to replace such angels and hard to contemplate that such young, talented and brave women will not enjoy long, happy and meaningful lives and careers, surrounded by family, or be mothers of their own. Iryna wrote a letter to her family in case she died on the battlefield and it has been circulated world-wide in the days following her death. Among many moving sentences, she said: “To have the strength to be a free person, one must be brave…because only the brave have happiness…thank you for everyone who loved me and supported me…I am not sorry to die because I am living the life I want. In fact, nothing else matters.”

Slava Ukraini! and please consider a donation to Project Konstantine in their memory.