Oleh Koshlyak, a level-6 electric gas welder from Dnipro’s industrial district, is no stranger to difficult jobs. Yet the task of restoring a gas distribution station near Velyka Oleksandrivka in Kherson Oblast proved to be unlike anything he’d faced before. “In autumn 2022, I volunteered with a few of my colleagues,” Oleh recalls. “They told us a shell had hit the station. We set off in a convoy—one truck, one car—led by a local who knew the safest, de-mined path. We drove through villages that had been torn apart. There were people who’d stayed behind, elderly who couldn’t evacuate, and all along the road, fragments of shells and missile debris lay scattered.” The State Emergency Service cleared the station of explosives, yet warned Oleh’s team not to stray from their worksite, as everywhere else was still heavily mined.
Once they arrived, what lay before them was daunting: the station had burned for a full day, with fire melting anything that could melt. “I had never seen anything like it,” Oleh recalls. “We had to rebuild the station almost from scratch, but we managed it in a week.” The crew, who had anticipated the repairs, had prepared and transported replacement parts to install on site, but getting the job done meant grueling 12-hour days, meticulously cutting out damaged sections and welding new ones.
The danger was unrelenting. “Bullets whistled above us, and drones buzzed overhead,” Oleh recounts. “We worked just seven kilometers from the front line, as Ukrainian forces pressed forward to reclaim Kherson.” Despite the ever-present risk, Oleh’s team kept working. Local residents, who had endured six months without gas, electricity, or water, welcomed them with open arms: “At least bring the gas back,” they would say. “Winter is coming soon.”
At night, the crew slept in their vehicles under open skies, braving the autumn chill. “We were lucky it didn’t rain,” Oleh says. After a week of grueling, dangerous work, they had restored the station, once more bringing gas to homes in Velyka Oleksandrivka. “We welded everything back together, even painted it all over,” Oleh recalls. “Afterward, we joked that it was hard to believe it had been a burned ruin just days before.”
Thanks to Oleh and his team, gas supply was resumed for 30,000 customers. But for Oleh, this task was not just a technical challenge, but an example of the resilience and determination of Ukrainians who are rebuilding their country.