He expected to be executed, but he escaped. The story of Anatolii Osukhovskyi, a chief sergeant in the Armed Forces of Ukraine

It was a warm June morning, and Anatolii Osukhovskyi, a chief sergeant in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, was lying on the ground with his hands tied, pinned down by a heavy log, awaiting his execution. This memory will stay with him for life.

Minutes earlier, it had all seemed like a long, feverish dream. Everything had happened so fast, as if a film editor had cut and spliced his life. One moment Osukhovskyi was walking through the forest, the next, click! – a rifle barrel was pressed to his temple, and click! – there was dry earth against his cheek, a log at his back, and the boots of a Russian soldier in front of him.

Osukhovskyi raised his head and looked the guard in the eye.

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“Don’t stare at me!” the guard shouted. That was the moment Osukhovskyi realised that he and his brothers-in-arms were going to be executed.

He clenched his teeth and began to pray silently. But he didn’t beg for a miracle to save his life. He didn’t ask for the salvation of his soul. He didn’t plead for a death without torture. He prayed for an idea. One good idea – how to escape.

In the defining moments of life, when faced with the harshest trials, a stormy wind strips away all the husk from a person, leaving only the core: the steely answer to the question of who you really are.

Anatolii Osukhovskyi, 56, has been a man of action his entire adult life.

In high school, he worked out with weights to prepare for military service. When the Soviet system called him to fulfil his “internationalist duty”, it sent the 18-year-old Master of Sport into the rocky deserts of Afghanistan.

As a young man, he started his own business. When a spike in the dollar rate bankrupted him in the mid-1990s, he didn’t despair. He packed a bag and went to work in the United Kingdom. He worked hard, paid off his debts, and after eight years, he started his own construction company.

In February 2022, Osukhovskyi had booked an expensive hotel in the United Arab Emirates and was planning to go on a dream holiday with his family. But on the morning of 24 February 2022, a friend of his called and said three words: “We’re at war.”

So instead of boarding a plane to Dubai, Osukhovskyi bought an off-road vehicle and military gear and went to defend Ukraine. He and his two brothers joined the same unit. His alias was “London”.

And now, three years later, at the most terrifying moment of his life, he had no intention of…