Border guards' story: father and son defend Ukraine (photo)

The story of the father and son border guards was told by the State Border Service.

Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Aladinich, a serviceman, has twice travelled to the active combat zone in Donetsk Region as part of his unit. His son, a border guard officer, spent more than a year defending Ukraine from the occupiers in Kherson region.

Continuous fighting and hard struggle for every centimetre of Ukrainian land - that's how Vadim talks about his last trip to the East.

As part of the Defence Forces, his unit fought in the Seversk direction. The enemy tried repeatedly to storm the positions of our defenders. One of such attacks, near the village of Grigorievka, the border guard remembered most of all.

Then the invaders began the assault around five in the morning. Artillery, mortar shelling, aviation, infantry - all this the occupants sent to take away the positions of the Ukrainian military. Four hours of fierce fire, however - without success. Our soldiers did not give the enemy a single chance to advance, and most importantly - without losses.

The hardest thing is not to see my relatives, as well as to lose my brothers, who became my second family during this war, - Vadim shares his thoughts.

For the last year and a half the family of the border guard hardly saw each other, they met with their son only twice. Most of all Vadim and Yevgeniy dream of victory, and now they are defending Ukraine from invaders.

By the Decree of the President of Ukraine, Staff Sergeant Vadim Druzhinu was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnitsky III degree for personal courage and selfless actions shown in defence of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine, loyalty to the Military Oath.