Ukrainian father hitchhikes 500 miles to spend 24 hours with his wife and children before heading into battle the next day
- Maxim Lietova, 38, hitched lifts with truck drivers, walked and used public transport to travel the 500 miles to reach his family at their home in Ukraine
- Maxim travelled throughout the night to surprise wife Olga and their children
- After spending fleeting 24 hours with his family, Maxim deployed to frontlines
A Ukrainian father has hitchhiked a gruelling 500 miles across Ukraine to spend just 24 hours with his wife and two children before being deployed to battle the next day.
Maxim Lietova, 38, hitched lifts with truck drivers, walked and used public transport to travel the 500 miles to reach his family at their home in western Ukraine.
Maxim, who had been offered a small window of leave before being sent to the frontline to fight Russian soldiers, travelled throughout the night and finally arrived at 6am on Monday and was able to surprise his wife Olga, 33, and their two children Masha, six, and Miskha, two, when they woke up.
‘I did everything I could to get home,’ Maxim told The Telegraph, adding that he will never take those moments with his family for granted.
Maxim, who hadn’t seen his children since March, explained: ‘When I was a child and my Mum and Dad said goodnight to us, we didn’t understand the importance of this gesture. Now this phrase has greater meaning for me.
‘Now I wish for all the world to go to sleep under a peaceful sky.’
After spending a fleeting 24 hours with his family, Maxim was deployed to the frontlines again.
Heartbreaking photographs show Maxim, wearing his army uniform, and his wife Olga holding each other and kissing before he was sent off to fight against Russia.
Maxim Lietova, 38, hitched lifts with truck drivers, walked and used public transport to travel the 500 miles to reach his family at their home in western Ukraine. He was finally reunited with his wife Olga and their two children for 24 hours. Pictured: Maxim and Olga embrace on the day before Maxim was deployed to the frontline
The couple have travelled long distances to see each other – even if it meant seeing each other for mere minutes – since the war began six months ago.
Last month, Olga drove 466 miles across Ukraine to surprise Maxim and spend just 20 minutes with him after he returned from military training in the UK.
Maxim recalls watching in amazement as he was Olga running along a road in a blue dress towards him and his comrades. Maxim, overcome with emotion, sweeps her off her feet and holds her as they both cried with relief.
Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian families have been torn apart in the war, with soldiers fighting on the front lines for months at a time without being able to return home.
Olga and Maxim know, that after their most recent 24 hours together, they might not see each other for a long time. Despite how hard it is to leave his wife and children, Maxim says it is his duty to serve Ukraine.
‘I think it’s the duty of every man in Ukraine to defend our motherland,’ Maxim, who worked as a sales manager for Nestle before the war, said as he held his wife’s hand at their home in western Ukraine.
‘How would my wife and children look at me if I were afraid of an air raid siren?’
Maxim and Olga met at school in Kryvyi Rih, the city in central Ukraine where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky grew up, but did not fall in love until 10 years ago.
For those 10 years, the couple have never had two days apart – which means that any chance they can get to see each other during the war, they take it.
But Maxim does not know when he will next see Olga and their two children.
Maxim and Olga, who reunited for just one day, embrace before he is sent to the frontline to fight against Russian troops
Ukrainian servicemen ride on an armoured personnel carrier (APC) as they make their way along a highway on the outskirts of Kryvyi Rih on April 28
He joined his comrades on the front line on Tuesday, as Ukrainian troops continue to put up a fierce defence against Russian soldiers.
Intensive fighting is raging across the southern region of Kherson where Ukraine began a counteroffensive on Monday.
Most of the region and its provincial capital of the same name were seized by Russian forces at the start of the invasion six months ago.
With the war in the eastern Donbas region largely stalled, analysts have said for weeks that combat is likely to shift south to break the stalemate before winter comes.
Ukraine sees recapturing the Kherson region as crucial to prevent Russian attempts to seize more territory further west that could eventually cut off its access to the Black Sea.
Britain, an ally of Ukraine, said Ukrainian formations in the south had pushed Russian front-line forces back some distance in places, exploiting relatively thin Russian defences. Ukraine said it had ‘successes’ in three areas of the region but declined to give details.
In its morning update, the president’s office in Kyiv said ‘fighting continued throughout the night’ in Kherson, and that one person had been killed and two injured in an overnight bombing in the Mykolaiv area.
But the Russian defence ministry claimed Kyiv’s attempts to advance its counteroffensive had ‘failed’ with Ukrainian forces suffering ‘significant losses and were driven back by Russian troops’.
For its part, the Ukrainian presidency said its forces had destroyed ‘almost all large bridges’ over the Dnipro River, a key supply route for Russian forces, leaving only pedestrian crossings in place.
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