The story of Yanis Tereshchenko, a soldier from of the 3rd Assault Brigade has been reverberating through all of Europe for long while now. Not just the Italian media, but also The Guardian and The Telegraph among others told their readers that the 32-year-old Ukrainian soldier on holiday in Venice saved the life of a man who had been stabbed in a brawl in the alleyways of the historic city center. It is likely that Yanis Tereshchenko’s prompt intervention saved the young man, who had been wounded in the leg and was losing a large quantity of blood. The man, reportedly Tunisian, had allegedly got into a fight with another Tunisian. He sustained a stab wound to the thigh, which reportedly severed his femoral artery. Yanis was on his way to his hotel with his wife and his five-year-old son in the Rialto district when he saw the victim lying on the ground and bleeding profusely, surrounded by panicked passers-by. He was able to use the first aid kit he has carried since joining the Ukrainian army three years ago. Doctors later said that Tereshchenko’s intervention was very fortunate. The victim was losing blood rapidly, and without the soldier’s prompt action, he might have died. Tereshchenko did his best to keep him conscious until the ambulance arrived.
Venice’s mayor, Luigi Brugnaro, met Tereshchenko and his family personally to thank him and present him with a plaque with the Venetian Lion. “My personal gratitude and the gratitude of all of Venice for this great gesture of humanity, courage and altruism to Yanis, to all of the Ukrainian people, to friends of Odesa. We proclaim our solidarity for a lasting peace that guarantees their defense,” the mayor wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Yanis had been a history and geography teacher at a school in Kryvyi Rih before joining the Third Assault Brigade of the Ukrainian military. He was planning a quiet vacation with his family in his beloved country, but there is currently no end to the press attention. “It’s a wonderful vacation, with adventures, and I love adventures,” he jokes. The soldier explained why he always carries tourniquets with him even during his vacation, why the Italian media initially dubbed him a “Russian tourist,” and how that accident became an opportunity to refute the Russian lies about us that its hostile propaganda sows in the heads of Europeans.
A TOURNIQUET ON HAND IS BETTER THAN AN AMBULANCE ON A BOAT
– Yanis, how was your vacation, how was Italy? Where were you, what did you see, did you had time to rest your head a little, recharge yourself?
– The vacation was wonderful – pleasant, cozy, we got lucky with the weather. At first, I wanted to fly to Sicily – to show my son Etna, but the volcano is smoking right now, unpredictable. So we chose to spend our time a little more modestly, calmer. It just didn’t work out calmer.
– This was not your first vacation, was it? Have you served with the 3rd Assault Brigade for a long while? How did you get there?
– I have been in this unit from the very beginning. Previously, I served with the Azov Special Operations Regiment, since the time I was mobilized for war in 2022. I was mobilized as a volunteer, by a direct appeal to the unit rather than through a military enlistment and recruitment center. That year, there was no vacation for me, nor was there an opportunity to go abroad. I hadn’t seen my family for a year and a half, and in the summer of 2023, I went to see them for the first time since the full-scale invasion began. Since then, we have spent each our vacation in Europe, and always travelled through Italy. I want to return there again and again. My first flight is always to Rome, I have friends there. We visit the Vatican every time. And this year we decided to diversify, we looked into Venice. And for good reason – it is wonderful at this time of year. Tourists are just starting to come in after winter ends, there are no crowds and heat yet. Carnival ended just a few days ago, and in places you can still see the untidy remains of confetti in the nooks and crannies and even meet people wearing masks on the streets. We stopped in one of the historic districts of the city – Canareggio, an island part of Venice. And people come to walk along the narrow medieval streets, ride gondolas. All four days of our holiday we spent in Venice were bright, full of impressions.
– I can imagine you returning to the hotel after such a walk and seeing a bloody drama unfolding before you. Wasn’t there a temptation to just walk past, not to take on this negativity and trouble?
– Of course, there was, it arose instantly. I hadn’t yet had time to comprehend the situation, I just saw the crowd, the blood and the first internal reaction was such a tired one, like “oh no, really again, here too”. My wife suggested we go around it – we were with our son, and there were pools of blood and I didn’t want to explain to the 6-year-old kid what it was… We just walked past, distracting my son’s attention to the shop windows. And then I put him on the ground near a restaurant nearby – I’ll go, I said, at least I’ll see what’s going on.
And out of the corner of my eye I already managed to notice that guys were trying to stop the bleeding, pinching his leg, an artery with a belt. All their actions were correct, but the belt wouldn’t apply the sufficient pressure, plus they didn’t take the items out of the victim’s pockets and simply pressed them against his thigh rather than the artery. And the guy was already in critical condition, he was bleeding, dying. He was lucky. Maybe he would have survived until the ambulance arrived, but at that moment I didn’t calculate the probability.
– And how fast did the ambulance and the police arrive?
– Pretty quickly. But you have to understand what “quickly” means when talking about such a service, even in Venice. There, the ambulance moves by boats, like everyone else. There are no cars, bicycles, or electric scooters on the streets – except for grocery carts rolling by. There, the resuscitation vehicle won’t even be able to get as close as the victim’s feet, like it is here [in Ukraine]. The boat will sail to the pier (a rapid, there are a lot of them there) and then doctors will have to go on foot, that is, the logistics are complicated. We need to determine the nearest point, pull the stretcher out of the boat and run back to it. I think they did a great job, they arrived simultaneously with the police. I recorded the time – after applying the tourniquet, the medics arrived as soon as 10 minutes later. Apparently, for that city, that’s very fast. But this does not diminish the importance of providing emergency care in such situations. Ten minutes is too long a time when it comes to thigh injuries, other critical injuries that threaten life (peritoneum, skull, neck). They would probably have arrived in 10 minutes just to declare death…
– You evaluated the situation so accurately… Was it because you already have experience from years of service? Maybe you also speak a little Italian, because you understood each other with the people from that crowd who cared?
– We exchanged short phrases, they explained to me that it was a knife stab, they addressed the guy in different languages, but he doesn’t respond. But if you see three pools of blood and a man with a pale face lying on the ground, bloodstained clothes, there is no need for a deep analysis. I was only worried about the tamponade (inserting tampons into the wound to stop the bleeding, – ed.), but it was done without it, a tourniquet was enough. I must admit, I tightened him quite a bit. He must be a strong boy, because I kept waiting for him to cry out in pain (tightening a tourniquet on a limb is really painful) to orient myself as to when it was enough, but he remained silent. Fortunately, everything went well, I did everything correctly and he is alive.
— Did you first get acquainted with tourniquets while in service? When did you undergo a training in tactical medicine?
– I had experience working in a school before the war, and in Ukraine there are quite a lot training programs in providing emergency care for school employees. And the personnel themselves often worry about having the skills, because school is about children, unpredictable situations. Allergic reactions, injuries, accidents are always possible. But the tourniquet is already about military experience. They don’t teach children how to apply it – children have too thin limbs, you can’t fix the tourniquet. That is, it was precisely military experience that came in handy in this situation.
– Did you often have to help your comrades?
– Both them and civilians during missile strikes on the cities where we found ourselves. There was no feeling of confusion, uncertainty in actions, because we did it many times and always refresh this knowledge, regularly conduct medical trainings in the unit to maintain the developed reflexes.
– With the first-aid kit, it’s probably a reflex, a habit of always having it with you? Because after all, on vacation they carried it with them, but for what reason…
– Not just a habit – I used to wake up at night because I dreamed of an explosion and I had panic fear, because I understood that there were no means of protection at hand, nor any guys nearby who would provide care or be able to evacuate me. Now I got a little used to living with it, but the first vacations were terrible. I could not sleep at night because I could hear a plane flying, a car driving. I understand that it’s just a car driving outside the window, and I’m several thousand kilometers from the front line, but physically I can’t do anything about it. I hear the rumble approaching me, and I feel fear. The first-aid kit is my way of calming my anxiety, of grounding myself. I know that there are means of protection, I can help myself, my loved ones, the people around me. This is my anchor that brings me back from the world of emotions, from mental post-traumatic disorders back to material life: everything is fine, I am alive, healthy and not helpless.
THEY CALLED ME A RUSSIAN TOURIST, BUT APOLOGIZED SINCERELY
– Did you go to rest in the hotel after finishing the “bloody job”?
– It was next to a restaurant, and there was a very attentive waiter. A restaurant, visitors at tables, and here I come in with a bloody knife, with which I had just cut jeans, my bag in blood, clothes. I understand that I could scare people, I guess it was not easy for the waiter, but he acted worthy of respect. Because he immediately showed me where the water, antiseptics, the trash can were, offered boiling water, and quickly brought out gloves in my size. The reputation of the establishment is one thing, but saving a life is quite another, he set his priorities correctly.
Passers-by also helped as much as they could. Although one woman stood there, telling me that you shouldn’t do this, because they are drug dealers. And I had to distract myself with it, explaining that it doesn’t matter who it is – a person is dying, the main thing is to save a life. By the way, neither he nor the attacker were found carrying drugs or signs of drug use.
The guy was taken away, but I stayed – I understood that the police would still have a lot of bureaucratic work to do due to the incident. I left all my contact details, even accounts in messengers. They checked my IDs.
– And how did they find you later – the local press and the media?
– The publicity happened because the local press mistakenly referred to me as a Russian tourist. Of course, the local Ukrainians didn’t just leave it like that, they made a fuss, because what is it – to call a Ukrainian soldier a Russian. But the reporter who wrote the article immediately contacted me, apologized – they said that witnesses said that the rescuer was some tourist, probably Russian. They corrected the mistake immediately, within an hour of publication, but ours were outraged on social media for at least a day. The main thing is that I heard many words of support. The reporter assured me that she understood how unfortunate the mistake was for us.
And the following day, a City Hall official showed up. They found a Ukrainian-speaking man – an ethnic Ukrainian who had lived in Italy all his life – who explained in very broken Ukrainian that the city mayor would be glad to receive us. We came. We were very warmly welcomed in the administrative palace, the mayor awarded us a distinction, presented us a book about Marco Polo’s travels. We had a warm conversation, the mayor told us that he had been to Odesa, witnessed with his own eyes a barrage of attacks on the city, and that the hotel he was staying in was destroyed a week after his departure. Odesa and Venice are partner cities, and he has friends in Odesa. He expressed his support and absolute solidarity with us. A very warm and pleasant meeting.
People live in another part of Europe, they are quite inert. For us, our reality is important here and now, but others have to decide: either they don’t care, or they decide that they do care. And I am happy that such a decision has been made at least on the scale of one Italian city and the mayor is publicly talking about it. I was pleased as a person and as a citizen of Ukraine.
– And we are happy for you, that’s why we are paying such attention to the event.
– I understand why this is important. First of all, to show for the Europeans to see that Ukrainians are not just asylum seekers, refugees from war, but also people who care about the life of society. We are residents of Europe, members of European society like everyone else, we are inherent in humanity, empathy. I understand that with this deed I raised a lot of sensitive topics, in particular, propagandistic ones. Locals on social networks, journalists – everyone I talked to asked questions about how I went abroad, is it really allowed for men? And I explained that this was a vacation, not the first one, and that I visited Italy often. This was not a one-time action, not an exception that I crossed the border, but regular practice and military personnel often go on vacation in European countries. Russian propaganda in Italy are telling that we are forced to fight, people are grabbed on the streets, are not allowed to leave the country, that we live like in prison. We went through many painful topics and I think it happened very timely and aptly. If we omit the circumstances, I am glad that there was an opportunity to counteract the Russians also in the field of propaganda. To counteract their influence on society in the far rear of Europe. A drop in the ocean, but… another drop, mine drop.
– Which complements a worthy portrait of the [Ukrainian] nation…
– I would like Ukrainians to be evaluated by such stories, not by the Russian propaganda narratives. There were also many calls from Ukraine, from soldiers from many different units – they expressed support, gratitude for being care, involvement, and conscientiousness. Our State paid no less attention to this than the Italians did, and appreciated it.
– What do you think has struck the Italians the most?
– When a soldier provides emergency care to someone during a barrage in Ukraine, it has already become common for us. If a barrage occurs at nighttime, you cannot ignore it, but run to see if anyone has been injured. But Venice is a peaceful, relaxed touristic city, and crowds of people are not just indifferent, but disorganized. They walk, look, sometimes they are horrified, but not everyone is able to come up and get engaged. Maybe they are waiting for someone else to run up first. There is a big difference in perception. For us, these are everyday things that, to be honest, in the fourth year of the war, are no longer terrifying, but simply tiring. We do not perceive them as valiance. But for Italians, who continue to live a quiet life, this is an extraordinary event that attracts huge media interest.
Interviewed by Tetyana Nehoda, Kyiv
Source: Yanis Tereshchenko, the Ukrainian soldier who saved a man’s life while on holiday in Venice
