Newsletters
A Ukrainian citizen who had been building a fast-rising career in New York’s finance world has ended up on the front lines of Ukraine’s war with Russia after taking leave from Morgan Stanley in late 2022 and signing up for military service as an emergency combat medic.
Viktoriia Honcharuk, now 25, told the New York Post that she had been living what she described as “the crazy, perfect life” while working as an investment banking analyst in Manhattan, with a Midtown apartment, a boyfriend, and nights out with colleagues, including visits to Zero Bond, a members-only club in New York City.
Honcharuk said her sense of stability in New York shifted after Russia launched its full-scale attack on Ukraine, leaving her feeling as if she was “living in two worlds at the same time.”
While working in the US, she said she sent part of her salary to help her family in Ukraine and support the wider war effort, but she came to see that contribution as insufficient.
In December 2022, shortly before Christmas, she took a leave of absence from Morgan Stanley, flew back to Ukraine, and signed up for the army. She said she chose emergency combat medical work because it was the role most needed, despite having no prior medical experience and being afraid of blood and needles.
Honcharuk said she went through a short first-aid crash course that covered basics such as applying tourniquets (tight bands used to help stop severe bleeding), administering IV drips (fluids delivered through a vein), and treating what she referred to as “HAT wounds,” before being deployed.
Once assigned as a combat medic, she said she worked about 800 meters from the front line, riding in a makeshift ambulance with a driver to pick up soldiers hit by gunfire or artillery and rush them back to underground field hospitals in safer zones.
Describing the evacuations as surreal, she said she was struck by the attitude of the wounded, recalling that some continued to crack jokes even while being carried out, including comments about getting “cool prosthetics.”
Honcharuk said battlefield conditions changed further in 2023 as drone warfare ramped up. She said emergency combat medics now have to be positioned more than 12 miles behind the front lines because Russia has been dropping drones fitted with warheads into Ukrainian territory, a shift that can extend response times and increase pressure on evacuation teams.
She also described Russia’s use of glide bombs—munitions designed to travel farther after release—as “highly destructive,” saying they can bring down entire buildings.
Honcharuk said she suffered multiple concussions during her service, including one during an incident in which a glide bomb struck an aid building she was helping to evacuate.
Honcharuk said the war has brought heavy losses, stating that she had lost all the friends she began the war with and had personally cremated the bodies of three close friends.
Even so, she told the Post that she remains determined and quickly felt she was where she wanted to be, saying she found a sense of purpose in defending Ukraine.
She has documented her experience on Instagram and said it has encouraged others to sign up, while also leaving her with guilt because followers who join the fight are putting their lives at risk.
Honcharuk said some people she knows have called her “crazy” for walking away from a sought-after finance role for frontline danger, but she also said she could not have stayed in New York and lived with herself. “I felt I should be doing what I believe in,” she said, adding that she thought about how she would one day explain her choices to future children.
Honcharuk said she has returned to New York once since joining the war effort, including a visit to her Morgan Stanley office, where her old desk still stood empty.
She said her bosses would welcome her back and have discussed what team she might join, but she has not decided whether she will return.
She told the NY Post she tries not to focus on the future and said that if she were to die, she would accept it, adding, “If I die tomorrow, there’s not much to regret. I think I’ve done more than the average person can say they did.”
Set as preferred source
Set as preferred source
2 min read
