His team has hundreds of saved lives and the delivery of dozens of tons of humanitarian aid, which, thanks to a special police unit known as the White Angel, managed to introduce into combat zones where civilians continue to live.
The “White Angels” regularly take risky roads to civilians to export them from the towns and villages that find themselves under fire. They must avoid Russian offensive drones that hunt for cars, and often convince the home that it was high time to leave.
“Even my mother -in -law remained in the last minute in a sharpened city. My wife constantly called her and persuaded her to leave. When street struggles started on the outskirts of the city, there was January 2024, I came after it – at that time we thanked it there,” says the police team. Donetsk region, Hennadij Judin.
As I see, your normal morning begins with constant phone calls.
Yes, people call me, whether for my personal or my work phone. They just called me from Dobropilla that there are bucks who need evacuation. They do not have close relatives and should be placed in a medical facility. We will go after them on an armored car to export them from the battle zone, and then hand them over to our partner organizations we work with. They then take them to safer places where they place them in a medical facility or boarding school where seniors live.
Tell us more about your unit – the White Angel.
In the police section of the White Angel in the Donetsk region, there are 25 boys and girls. They are motivated by police officers, they have had special trainings, whether first aid, using weapons, or driving in extreme conditions. They work on four sections: Kosatantyniv, Lyman, Pokrovsko-Dobropil. The fourth is Bachmute, but this area is now occupied, so they help with the bone. Currently we have a number of applications for evacuation from Dobropilla or Bilozersky, bone and around the lyman.
Where did the name come?
In 2022, this section was founded by police from Marinka and Krasnohorivka, the first boys who started helping our people. At that time, they rode a white armored van and delivering humanitarian aid to people, evacuating people, children. Once they came to a family with seven children, one of them, he was a 11-year-old boy, ran to them and started calling on his siblings: White angels came!
How long have you been between them?
Our section began officially in December 2022, but until then we had formed groups that did evacuations of civilians, provided first aid and brought humanitarian aid to the places where they were fought. We started right after the Russian invasion, sometime in March 2022. Including me. My journey started from my hometown, from Avdijivka (the city has been occupied by the Russian army since February 2024, note Red), where my partner and I started to help people. Last year, our section was officially included in the national police components. I became her leader, here in the Donetsk region.
So before the invasion, you worked as a professional cop in Avdijivka.
Yes, I was the chief of the patrol police section. There was also my first evacuations. Gradually, evacuations from other municipalities and towns were added.
To evacuate your own neighbors before the fighting had to be a difficult experience.
Avdijivka was a small town, everyone knew each other. So you suddenly see people who experience a great personal misfortune. There were neighbors who died, even those who were injured. After the occupation of Avdijivka I moved to Pokrovska. It was there that we moved people from Avdijivka, because there was a shelter in Pokrovsk, where they could stay and decide what to do next. Whether to continue your journey to safer areas of Ukraine to the west or center of the country, or stay in the poker. Finally, the fighting approached this city. I have often seen my neighbors from Avdijivka, many still remembered me from the evacuation, and I suggested them to travel. But they didn’t want to. They took it so that they left once and did not want to experience it again. People choose their fate themselves. I have no idea what’s wrong with them now.
I note that in Ukraine it is a common question – why people stay in sharpened cities where it is literally every day. Do you have an answer for those who put it?
I don’t have a clear answer. People remain of their own will. Even some sick parents who stay in similar places with their children. We will take them from there and they will come back. It happened to me several times in Avdijivka and Pokrovska. Unfortunately, there are also such cases. Children are helpless if they have similarly negligent parents.
The state can do anything about it?
The legislation does not give us any powers so that we can influence it somehow. We cooperate with the military administration and social worker, we warn parents, police for juveniles write protocols on parents, but it ends with a fine. Imagine the conditions, for example in the poker, which is under constant fire, where a connection does not work where there is no electricity, gas or water. People in similar circumstances remain even in winter. Children do not see daylight, they cannot be in the circle of their peers, they cannot play on the pitch. They spend almost all day in the cellar. I have no idea what these parents have in their heads.
Do you know cases with a tragic end?
I remember the case from Avdijivka. Forced evacuation was declared. Our team came to one of the families, and there is a video of how we talk them. It was a family in which there was a one -year -old boy. On that day, the part of the city where they lived was under a massive sharpening of the Grad (rocket launcher, note Red). The intervention also got their house, which at that time was a grandmother and a small child. The mother and father of the child who were in the yard were injured. Granny and the baby had no chance. The house engulfed the fire, but the firefighters couldn’t get to them. When it all calmed down, I personally collected the remains that remained from my grandmother and the baby. Only a tiny skull remained. The remains then headed for expertise.
When one chooses a police officer’s profession, he is probably ready to see really terrible things in life…
We in Avdijivka experienced the war in 2014. The city was shot by artillery and we already saw the dead. In 2017, the front finally died, the city began to recover. New schools, kindergartens, Avdijivka came to life. On various occasions there were even concerts with the stars of Ukrainian establishment.
Do you remember an evacuation that accompanied a great risk that you don’t have to come back? Or actually every evacuation is like that?
Each evacuation is a separate story. At the beginning of the Russian invasion, we had no idea what the FPV drone was, which could drop an explosive device on you. At that time, the artillery and aviation attacked. However, the operation of the war has changed, and unfortunately, the opponent has improved. For the first time we experienced an FPV drone attack at the end of 2023. He hit our car, but we were very lucky not to explode. He just hit us and fell on the road.
In the summer of 2024 the drone exploded next to our car. With our partners we had easy contusions (a shock of internal organs due to a pressure wave, note red). We evacuated the woman, but as soon as we loaded her and put it in the car, the drone appeared.
Subsequently, we began to perceive FPV drones especially on the front at the poker section. On the day of the Constitution of Ukraine, June 28, we went to the city, we received several evacuation applications. When we entered the poker, we saw a group of people. They were ordinary civilians, cyclists on which he attacked the drone. A woman, a man and a young boy. The Molnija drone, which is able to carry a larger charge, exploded straight by them. The man was severely injured, two amputations, great injuries caused by fragments. We started loading it immediately into the vehicle, we couldn’t just walk around. When we loaded it, we had to constantly check the sky, because drones were constantly flying over us.
What about a woman and a boy?
The woman was also injured, a 20-year-old boy suffered light injuries. We loaded everyone in the car. The man was conscious, but he was bleeding massively, and we immediately pulled his limbs with turnstiles. We had to postpone the evacuation of people because we had to provide first aid.
However, during the exit from Pokrovska to our car, Molnija burned. Car damaged, destroyed wheels. We got stuck. My young colleague had fragments in his leg. We called for help and it came, but we lost an hour of time. The boys immediately took injured civilians. When I later arrived at the hospital, I saw that a man with amputations was up to the JIS, and then let me know he died in the evening. If the Russians were not hit by a drone then, he might have survived.
What protects you from drones?
We are driving on armored vehicles. Cars have Starlink and a jammer. Before the exit, we will always check it to make sure it works, as the Location means our life and the life of the people we export. At the same time we have shotgun to defend ourselves in this way. When evacuation is ongoing, one of the colleagues always checks the sky over us so that the drone does not approach us.
Do you follow what is happening in international policy, negotiations that, according to politicians, to negotiate peace?
Police are trying not to climb politics. But of course, like everyone, we read and follow the news. And we have been listening to the ceasefire since 2014.
Are you skeptical?
Yes.
When do you feel that this job gives you a work?
When I see a human misfortune. When I see their close people die in front of their eyes and my eyes. When you try to talk to them to leave the fighting zone and they tell you that they can do it. And then the next day you will find that the person is dead and his loved ones admit that they were to listen to you.
Where do you think the faith is taken in similar places that it is their house or apartment building?
People often don’t understand what is really happening, they don’t see the whole picture. I give them examples, I describe what was happening in Avdijivka or in other cities that hit the front when shooting fights lead in their streets. I tell them that it is almost impossible to survive in such conditions. I have an example in my family when I had to talk to someone – my own mother -in -law. She tried to last in Avdijivka until the last moment. Her wife constantly called her and persuaded her to leave. When street fights started on the outskirts of the city, it was January 2024, I came after her – at that time she thanked us that we didn’t leave it there. Today he lives in the safe region of the country.
Does people also affect the fear of moving to another place, concerns that they have no idea what they will be with them, where to share?
People see their loved ones die, their neighbors say they don’t know how to live next. But the fear of the unknown sometimes wins even the fear of death.
