On December 6, Dmytro “Sawyer” Ostrovskyi was killed at the front. He was a 21-year-old Azov fighter who volunteered to fight at the age of 18. We recorded this conversation with Dmytro in February 2024, when he was undergoing rehabilitation after being wounded.
Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, Dmytro studied at the National University of Ukraine on Physical Education and Sport. But the idea of going to war had been with him since school. His father is a veteran of the Anti-Terrorist Operation.
“My father went to this war, and I understood that this is how a man should act. When I was 14 or 15, I already thought I would have to fight too. I was even afraid I wouldn’t make it in time.”
Dmytro chose the callsign “Sawyer” because of his father, whose callsign is “Mark.” “Mark Twain. Mark Twain wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, so I became Sawyer. He’s a great character — a cheerful kid who loves adventures. In some way, I see myself in him.”
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Dmytro applied to one of the first recruitment waves of the 3rd Assault Brigade but was turned down. “I think they looked at me like a kid and just felt sorry for me.” Six months later, he joined Azov. “I ended up in a really good team. I didn’t expect to make so many friends so quickly — not just acquaintances, but real friends.”
Dmytro fought on the Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk fronts until he sustained multiple injuries. He remembers his first battle as a mix of fear, adrenaline, and intense mental focus: “You work like a computer, running through a million operations — where to turn your head, when to duck, when to stand up. You’re shouting something to your brothers, but no one hears anyone. There’s no time to think for long, you act the way you were trained — and I was trained well. I knew: either they’re shooting at you, or you’re shooting at them.”
In one of the battles, Sawyer suffered gunshot and shrapnel wounds and lost a finger. While undergoing rehabilitation, he was already waiting to return to service. “The thing that worries me the most is inaction.” Asked how the war had changed him, Dmytro said: “I’ve stopped liking long conversations about nothing.”
About his first battle, his first losses, his wounds, his attitude toward the enemy, and his thoughts on war and civilian life — in this conversation with Dmytro “Sawyer” Ostrovskyi (English subtitles).
