Today’s event marks the culmination of what the “Aybolit: On the Way to Recovery” project has worked toward for a year and a half.
Together with our heroes—veterans with serious injuries and military personnel—we have navigated a challenging journey of practice and recovery. This path took us from initial tentative attempts at swimming to conquering distances of 25 and 50 meters, and ultimately to participation in the Invictus Games 2025.
Twenty veterans participated in today’s event. While formally structured as a competition, the focus was not on rivalry or winners. Within minutes of interaction, two teams of veterans became a unified whole—a community of people who understood each other without words.
Each participant is a living legend, an extraordinary individual. Each has already emerged victorious by proving their capabilities and willpower to themselves and to society.
Today’s event is special not only because it gathered the strongest, hardiest, and most resilient among us. Above all, it celebrates fortitude, battlefield heroism, and mutual support; the return to active life after combat, despair, and months in hospital beds; and the unwavering will to overcome adversity while serving as role models of perseverance.
This competition embodies rehabilitation and the relentless effort required on the road to recovery.
Today, every one of us felt part of a triumphant Ukrainian community—united and inspired by a shared purpose: the competitors, their children, spouses, and friends who came to support them, and the organizers.
We sincerely thank the National University of Physical Education and Sports of Ukraine (NUFVSU), the Olympic Style Sports Complex, and the NUFVSU Training and Rehabilitation Center for their partnership in developing the Aybolit project’s aquatic therapy activities:
@Пижов Олександр Михайлович, NUFVSU acting rector
@Санжаров Руслан Вікторович, Olympic Style Sports Complex director
@Корж Віктор Петрович, NUFVSU Training and Rehabilitation Center director
@Домбровський Вадим Олександрович, Paralympic National Team coach
@Вакуленко Роман, rehabilitologist
We thank our colleagues in the small but resilient “Aybolit: On the Way to Recovery” team.
‼ This initiative is realized by the Wings of Victory charity within the Capable and Resistant Program implemented by the East Europe Foundation with the financial support of Switzerland.
We also express our sincere gratitude to our permanent sponsors, without which the activities of the project would be impossible:
@RGOW Projekte, Switzerland
@Олесь Клименко та Соня Атлантова
@БФ Святого Мартіна Де Порес
@Partnerschaftsaktion Ost im Bistum Magdeburg, Germany
@МБФ «Сприяння Розвитку Медицини»
@БФ «Час служити»
Stand Strong!
