A letter to Stephen King, a sports field. The lengths loved ones go to ensure their fallen heroes continue to ‘live'

He could not find himself because of his desire for justice

"It was hard with Mykhailo. He was different from all the other children. In the village, how is it? Everyone walks the same, like a copycat, saying what they want to hear. And those who are different are stoned to death. He had an axe to grind," says Inna Shkliar, the victim's older sister. "At school, he made a mohawk like his favorite musician. They made fun of him, but he walked around in silence."

Mykhailo's stubbornness and persistence were evident in everything. He decided to build his own computer. He read a bunch of books, figured it out, and assembled it. Whenever he had a question, he studied it in depth. He spent hours in the library, studied information on the Internet, and consulted with experts until he got to the bottom of it.

"It was hard to watch movies with him. He would first read the book on which the movie was based. And then it would start: this doesn't match, and that's not right in the book. He would pick it apart. He also chose difficult movies, not light comedies," Inna recalls.

When he wanted something, nothing stopped him. Once he gained weight, he decided to lose it in two months. And it worked – he lost 15 kilograms and got fit. He got into the shape he wanted.

On the one hand, Inna admired her brother's determination, but on the other hand, she was frightened by his steadfastness. Even fanaticism. After all, her brother did not allow himself any weaknesses that are characteristic of most people.

Because of his desire for excellence and justice, Mykhailo's life was not easy. He left his studies at one of Kharkiv's universities after two years – because he was counting on a different level of knowledge. He worked at a construction site and quit: they were not building according to the standards, "unfairly."

When Mykhailo was drafted into the army and was assigned to the elite special forces, he returned disappointed. There was no NATO approach there. They taught him well, but in practice they had to paint grass and pick leaves from trees in December.

At the end of 2017, Mykhailo Chabanenko wrote to all the combat brigades, asking if they needed him. And then he got a letter in hand: the 30th Mechanized Brigade was waiting for him. Together with this unit, he fought on all axes: Bakhmut, Slovyansk, Luhansk, Donetsk and Kharkiv oblasts.

War is the place where the right Mykhailo finally finds himself. Here he can be useful. In war, everything can and should be done right. Otherwise, you will die.

"I hate pigs"

Prior to the full-scale invasion, Chabanenko, who goes by the call sign Fox, had already been wounded twice. The last time, in 2021, he had just managed to pull through.

After being wounded in the leg, blood poisoning began. The body temperature refused to fall. The 30-year-old man was dying in Kharkiv, and the necessary equipment to cleanse his body was not available there. He would not have been able to get to the capital by land. So a helicopter was sent to pick up the fighter. For a week, doctors kept trying to save Mykhailo, keeping him under general anesthesia every day.

"I was very afraid that he wouldn't make it. But his young age and general fitness pulled him through. Misha always took care of himself: he didn't drink, didn't smoke, took vitamins, ate well, and was athletic. Even in the trenches, he would do push-ups or look for a tree to do pull-ups," says Inna.

She is a military officer herself, acting as a psychologist. She is currently on maternity leave.

On March 30, 2022, her brother's contract was about to expire, after which he was going to pursue higher education as a serviceman. But due to the full-scale invasion, the contract was automatically extended.

Inna recalls how once Mykhailo was thought to be dead: "Their position was suddenly taken by the enemy. Ukrainians retreated quickly, leaving documents, phones, and tablets behind. Misha had a drone, a wallet, a passport, a military ID, and that was it. And so the Russians took possession of this property and immediately posted documents in their chat rooms and wrote: ‘Such and such a Nazi has been eliminated’. I received a call from a Ukrainian search group: ‘He's dead’. The village head came to see me: ‘[KIA]’. Since I am a military officer and know the procedure, I dialed the military enlistment office. It is their lists that can be trusted. Misha was not on them."

My brother called me late at night. He was screaming hysterically into the phone: "I'm alive, I'm alive!"

His sister had never heard or seen him show emotion. The always reserved man answered: "Everything is fine", "Everything is good". This (and another) case showed how war changes everyone.

"One day he confided in me. He was released for rehabilitation after being treated for another injury. In the evenings, Misha would open up, he could talk for hours about what was happening at the front. And here is one episode: they were standing near Severodonetsk. From a ruined pig farm with 2,000 head, the animals scattered around the neighborhood. They were attacked by hungry dogs from the villages.

After the battle, Misha and his platoon commander found themselves in the occupied territory. Their brother-in-arms was wounded in the groin, and his intestines fell out. A pig came up to him and began to crunch his face. He was still alive! Misha was lying two meters away and saw everything, but he could not move to avoid being discovered. He dug a hole with his hands and lay down for two days. He coughed into the ground (he started smoking during the war - ed.), soiled himself until he could crawl back to his lot," she sobs.

She was very worried that Mykhailo would lose his mind if he heard the neighbors' pigs grunting. He kept telling Inna how much he hated pigs.

Recognized a Hero

After being wounded again during the full-scale war, Mykhailo returned to the front line. In early August 2022, as part of his brigade, he repelled assaults on a stronghold near the village of Mazanivka in Donetsk Oblast. Chabanenko was awarded the title of "Hero of Ukraine" for his courage in battle and for saving more than a dozen brothers-in-arms, destroying the enemy and their equipment.

But the distinction was awarded posthumously. On August 16, he was killed during an intense shelling. A bullet hit his eye and crushed his skull. Inna decided to bury her brother in an open coffin so that he could "see the sky".

On the day of the burial, everyone came out to see the fellow villager off. The trip to the cemetery took four hours instead of 30 minutes. Grandmothers held onto chairs, and a one-legged man got down on his knee.

"He was lying there so handsome. He took great care of himself: even at the front he had hair gel," says his sister.

The family decided to bury the hero not in Cherkasy on the Alley of Glory, where other soldiers are buried, but at home, near his grandparents. They ordered a monument from the city's most famous sculptor, paying about a million hryvnias ($27,737).

"He is standing full-length on a pile of books because he loved to read. He looks like he’s almost alive, it's scary to see how much he looks like him," the woman is amazed at the result.

Mykhailo's helmet was returned covered in blood: it was cleaned and now his younger brother Vasyl is fighting on the front line in it. His mother, Valentyna Chabanenko, gathered the documents and sent them to his superiors: when there is one dead in the family, the others may not fight, so let him return.

"But it was his decision. Misha's death changed Vasyl a lot. Like all of us (there are five children in the family – ed.). His wife is due next month. Everyone is afraid for him, his mother sleeps with the phone tied to her ear so as not to miss a call. She is barely surviving: the death of one son and the other fighting in the war has knocked the ground out from under her feet," Inna sighs heavily.

Playground named in honor of the slain hero

One day, the guys' mother saw a story where another mother, from Zakarpattya Oblast, used the money she received after her son's death to build a mini-football field. They decided that their family would also do something similar for Mykhailo. They settled on the idea of a sports ground with gym equipment.

"Until 2001, Yaroshivka was a flourishing village thanks to the sugar factory. It provided jobs and took care of the nearby park. The river was cleaned, paths were laid out, and grass was mowed. But the plant went out of business, and all these years the park has become a continuous thicket," says Inna.

The woman realized that having money and a desire to help was not enough. She plunged into a whirlwind of arrangements, tenders, agreements, and permits. It lasted for months. In the end, she spent 220,000 hryvnias ($6,102) on the facility, and another 60,000-70,000 hryvnias ($1,664-1,942) were donated by local entrepreneurs whose son is Chabanenko's classmate who also fought.

Only Inna with an axe and her neighbor came to the cleanup, where the residents of Yaroshivka were invited (he village has a population of 1,300 people – ed.). But after an hour, they joined in.

"People did not believe that it was an act of goodwill. They were used to the idea that if they were given something, they had to give something back. And it's the same here. They were afraid that their land plots, houses would be taken away, and they would be forced to vote for someone. But here everything is different. You should have seen how enthusiastic the children and the elderly were to dig and drag things around, because it was for them," Inna's voice soars.

The 200 m² sports ground has gym equipment and a tennis table. Everything is fenced. The stadium and the nearby park were cleaned up, the grass was mowed and paths were "found" under a 60-centimeter layer of garbage. Benches, a sandbox, and a street camera were installed.

For the opening day in June of this year, one of the local businesses ordered an inflatable trampoline city to entertain the kids.

"They jumped from 10 am to 6 pm. They would go out, vomit, come back, and jump again," laughs Inna. "Black, dirty, but so happy. The children are tired of the war. Not everyone knows about it, especially the little ones, but they feel it in their parents, in the atmosphere. And they want to live their childhood."

The woman has also installed a small trampoline in the kindergarten and plans to make a playground with carousels there. She even placed an order, but the warehouse with the equipment was flooded by the waters of the Kakhovka reservoir. So, at this stage, there is neither money nor equipment.

Letter to Stephen King

The hero's sister also dreams of a movie theater. Her brother was very fond of movies and always tried to take his mother to the cinema whenever she visited him in Cherkasy. In general, he took great care of her in all matters: "Is mom cold? Here's a heater for her", "Is her TV set broken? We'll buy her a new one."

"Most children from the village have never been to a movie theater. The city is 125 kilometers away. It costs 1,000 hryvnias ($28) to take two children. Where can people get such money from? If the salary at a local enterprise is 6,000-9,000 hryvnias ($166-250) for a 12-hour working day," says Inna.

She calculated that her family would not be able to afford a new cinema. It would take about half a million hryvnias ($13,869), not including the premises. They have an old club that needs to be overhauled. She is already dealing with this issue.

But she asked… Stephen King for speakers, a projector, and a canvas. She wrote him a letter. She told him that her brother was a fan of the writer and had collected a library of his works. The woman knew that he was planning to come in September and was looking forward to a possible meeting.

There is no answer yet, but Inna is not discouraged. Now she is busy making arrangements to renovate the club. Her family will do general repairs "so that the roof doesn't fall on anyone's head" and a room for a cinema.

"I often visit the village. When I see young people playing sports every evening on the playground, and people come from neighboring villages, when they hang out there, listen to music, when mothers and children sit on benches and play, when boys play football, my heart is happy. In the village where we had nowhere to go, there is now such a place.

I understand that many guys die and will be forgotten. But I believe that our contribution will prolong the memory of my brother. He would definitely be in favor of such an idea – a playground. But he would have studied the issues in detail: how deep to bury the gym equipment, how many people will be training, what kind of load," Inna smiles.