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He fought in the Second World War, took part in the liberation of Prague from Germany 77 years ago, and now he has returned to the Czech Republic. However, paradoxically, as refugees from Ukraine who fled the war.

We are talking about Borys Fyodorovych Semyon, who was born in Russia and is now 97 years old. After the Second World War, he built a small house in Ukraine, where he still lives. But he fled to the Czech Republic because of the Russian invasion and is now back in Prague.

According to him, his life story begins in Russia, where he was born in 1925. His father was in the Tsarist army, then fought against the Nazis for the Soviet Union and died. Borys Fyodorovych Semyonov did not graduate from primary school in Leningrad and then joined the Soviet Army at a very young age.

“When the war started my father went to war first. They didn’t want to let him go because he was old and soon died. I joined the army in 1941, it was my intention, I wanted to voluntarily enlist. But I was young and they didn’t want to let me go, but in the end they wrote a different date of birth and I later joined the army,” Semyonov said in an interview for Seznam Zprávy.

The war veteran also claims that the army used him as a young man to scout behind the German front and that he was paid bread for it. During the Second World War, he participated in battles. “I was an ordinary soldier all the time there was war. I arrived in Prague on May 9, 1945 at eight in the morning. After I arrived in Prague and the military commander arrived, he started handing out military titles. They promoted me,” he proudly says on his jacket. , where one medal hangs next to another.

After the war, in 1949, Borys Fyodorovych Semyonov settled in Ukraine and built a small house in the city of Nikopol in the south of the country. According to him, he was promised an apartment and a car for his service in the Soviet army, but he never received anything.

He worked in a factory, first as a carpenter, then a builder. His first wife died in 2011. He remarried and his second wife lives in Ukraine. He hoped that he would come to see her in the Czech Republic.

In the current war between Ukraine and Russia, he most deplores civilian casualties. “The worst thing about war is that Putin kills women, children and the elderly. I don’t understand why there will be no peace, what bothers me the most is civilians dying,” he said with tears in his eyes.

The war veteran is now in Prague and is being cared for by the non-profit organization Prosaz. “Our organization was contacted by the KACPU help center in Vyšehrad, where we offered accommodation for disabled refugees from Ukraine in a barrier-free house in Stodůlky. Mr Borys S. was transferred to us on Wednesday, March 30 in the evening. He was taken away by officers firefighters delivering the refugees,” said non-profit spokesman Daniel Petrák, explaining how the war veterans got to them.

The non-profit organization provides nursing services to veterans. This helps her with common tasks such as preparing and serving food, accompanying her on walks or arranging medical check-ups. He has no medical reports or other medical documentation.

“Mr Borys came in only a uniform and a bag containing essential items – a few pieces of clothing, documents, toiletries. Our organization approached the food bank in Prague, and other food was brought by the organization’s employees and the public,” added a spokesman for Petrák.