Oleksandr Budko, a 28-year-old Ukrainian conflict veteran, whose navy name signal is Teren, poses for a portrait in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 18. Budko, a double amputee, participated within the Ukrainian model of the TV present The Bachelor.
Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
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Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
KYIV, Ukraine — Oleksandr Budko seems to be like a number one man. He’s sandy-haired and blue-eyed, with muscular tattooed arms and the chiseled face of a film star.
“I’m a navy veteran, an activist and author. And I’m additionally The Bachelor,” he says on this season’s Ukrainian version of the favored actuality TV franchise.
The Bachelor, or Kholostiak in Ukrainian, is produced by Starlight Media and Warner Bros. International Television, and it airs on STB, a Ukrainian channel. This season, its thirteenth, premiered on Nov. 1.
Inna Bielien, 29, a German language translator, poses for a portrait at house in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Dec. 13. She is among the feminine contestant of the Ukrainian model of the TV present The Bachelor.
Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
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Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
In one episode, Budko is on a rock-climbing date with a healthful translator named Inna Bielien.
“Oh my God,” she says, as she hangs off the cliff.
“Don’t fear, I will likely be very shut, proper behind you,” he says, as he helps her scale the rock face.
What goes unsaid is that Budko is doing this on prosthetic legs, clearly seen as a result of he is sporting shorts. He’s a double amputee. He represents the tens of 1000’s of Ukrainians who’ve misplaced limbs since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. An adviser to Ukraine’s Sports and Youth Ministry put the quantity at round 100,000 final yr.
Oleksandr Budko, with the decision signal Teren, misplaced each legs on the entrance line in Ukraine’s battle in opposition to the Russian invasion.
Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
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Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
Their visibility — in style magazines, on catwalks and now a well-liked actuality TV sequence — exhibits how a lot the conflict has affected Ukraine.
“Still,” he tells NPR in an interview, “there’s nonetheless an issue with stigma. I went on The Bachelor to assist deal with it.”
“I spotted then I’d lose my legs”
Budko, 28, grew up in western Ukraine and was working as a barista in a coffeeshop in Kyiv when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He enlisted and was quickly on the entrance line. That summer season, his unit had stalled whereas making an attempt to push Russian troops out of northeastern Ukraine. During a lull within the combating, the unit determined to relaxation. Budko lay down in a trench.
“Then one thing hit that induced the ditch to crumble,” he says.
Russian troops had shelled the ditch. Budko was buried in earth, twisting in ache as his fellow troopers dug him out.
“I used to be acutely aware the complete time,” he says. “And I additionally realized then that I’d lose my legs.”
Budko recovered by way of intensive, and sometimes excruciating, bodily remedy. He threw himself into sports activities, even competing in swimming on the 2023 Invictus Games. He additionally wrote a e-book and carried out in a contemporary ballet.
“There was no level in me being offended at anybody or something about what occurred,” he stated. “It was higher to do one thing good as a substitute.”
Oleksandr Budko tries to experience a unicycle on the Recovery rehabilitation middle in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 18. He goes to rehabilitation facilities to share the data on the method of his restoration, logistics to acquire prosthetics and in regards to the prospects for injured veterans.
Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
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In the opening to The Bachelor, he jumps on a motorbike, tucks a crimson rose into his leather-based vest-jacket, and speeds away. Each episode options stunning younger ladies vying for his consideration, usually with the built-in melodrama typical of actuality exhibits.
“I needed to point out the probabilities,” he says. “I needed to provide individuals religion.”
“You are examples of braveness and heroism”
The individuals he is speaking about are fellow wounded veterans. Budko visits them usually, they usually’re a troublesome crowd — exhausted, skeptical, emotionally distant.
“They by no means enable themselves to point out any emotions of failure,” he says.
On a latest afternoon, he stops by a hospital in Kyiv the place dozens of veterans are recovering from amputations. He cringes when he hears their screams of ache throughout bodily remedy.
Injured troopers on the Recovery rehabilitation middle hearken to Oleksandr Budko, a 28-year-old veteran, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 18. During his visits to rehabs, troopers ask Budko plenty of sensible questions on issues like prosthetics and well being care.
Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
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Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
Budko walks right into a room crammed with wounded troopers in wheelchairs and sitting on beds. He introduces himself together with his navy name signal, Teren. It’s the title of a thorny wild plum. In Ukrainian folklore, it symbolizes obstacles and overcoming them.
“Do not focus solely in your harm, as a result of keep in mind — you’re examples of braveness and heroism,” he tells the troopers. “You should not disabled.”
Rostyslav Andrusenko, a health care provider serving to the lads get well, says many are depressed. They concern they’ll not be helpful to their households or society.
“They ask me if they’ll ever stroll once more or play soccer with their buddies or assist their children, all of the on a regular basis issues that they did earlier than,” Andrusenko says.
Oleksandr Budko, whose navy name signal is Teren, talks to injured troopers on the Recovery rehabilitation middle in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 18.
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Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
Budko offers a pep discuss to the troopers and likewise cracks just a few jokes that do not fairly land. The males politely clap when he finishes after which ask loads of sensible questions, like the place to get the perfect prosthetics.
Mykola Kovalenko, a married father of two, badly injured his leg on the entrance line after a mine exploded and should need to have it amputated. He asks Budko the best way to navigate medical paperwork, which he equates to “passing by way of the seven circles of hell.”
Budko guarantees to assist, and Kovalenko lastly cracks a smile. He says his spouse and two teenage daughters love this season of The Bachelor.
Ukrainian conflict veteran Oleksandr Budko (proper) talks to an injured soldier, Mykola Kovalenko, 36, on the Recovery rehabilitation middle in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 18.
Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
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“What he’s doing could be very useful,” Kovalenko says. “He is exhibiting guys like me, guys who’re injured, that every one shouldn’t be misplaced, that we should not hand over, that we must always hold making an attempt.”
Budko says troopers not often focus on their emotions about relationships and self-image with him. He does supply his quantity, although, in case they do need to discuss in some unspecified time in the future.
“Everyone has their very own delicate subjects that they are ashamed to speak about,” he says, together with intimacy and the concern of being pitied by potential companions.
Love and conflict
Inna Bielien, 29, German language translator who’s a contestant on the Ukrainian model of the TV present The Bachelor, exhibits a photograph from behind the scenes of present, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Dec. 13.
Oksana Parafeniuk/for NPR
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Oksana Parafeniuk/for NPR
The conflict has additionally touched the ladies on the present. One is a widow whose husband was killed on the entrance line. Another is a soldier. Inna Bielien, the translator on the rock-climbing date, can also be a humanitarian volunteer who sources and sends provides to Ukraine’s troops.
NPR meets her in her fashionable condominium in a Kyiv neighborhood that is usually hit by Russian drones. She talks a couple of soldier, Vadym, she cherished who was killed early within the conflict. She says she was nonetheless holding out hope when she received the decision about him.
“I keep in mind considering, Lord, I hope he is alive, even with no arms and no legs, as a result of it’s higher to come back again with out limbs than not come again in any respect,” she says.
Even so, she says, many Ukrainians battle to speak to wounded veterans.
“I used to be informed that in case you see a soldier, you say thanks and put your hand to your coronary heart,” Bielien says. “Asking about amputations, whether or not that crosses private boundaries, that’s nonetheless new for us.”
Oleksandr Budko talks to a participant on the Donbas Media Forum convention in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 18. Budko, a Ukrainian veteran who misplaced each legs on the entrance line, stars within the Ukrainian model of the TV present The Bachelor.
Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
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Oksana Parafeniuk for NPR
Budko says the sequence helped present that it is OK to ask questions, particularly on the subject of intimacy.
“Like, ‘Does it damage after I contact your limbs there?’ and so forth,” he says.
Budko says he feels he has accomplished some good on the present. And he now has a girlfriend, however will not say if it is Bielien, who says she fell in love with him, or another person.
He cannot reveal something, he says, till the season finale on Friday.
