Desyatnik is a firearm instructor on the side and provides pre-military training to teenagers who will soon serve in combat roles in the IDF.
Dennis Desyatnik, 45, left Israel for Ukraine after receiving a call from his wife’s relatives in the country that they feared for their lives amidst the Russian invasion and asked for help to escape, according to a report from Ynet.
After arriving on Ukrainian soil, he realized that he would return back to his family later than he initially thought after hearing horror stories of what happened during the Russian invasion, the report said. Examples include Russians murdering children and raping women.
As a result, he volunteered for a special Ukrainian intelligence unit in the armed forces, which Ynet reports that it “resembles the IDF’s elite special forces unit Sayeret Matkal.” Desyatnik said that he and those in his unit destroyed several Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers, as well as neutralized many Russian combatants. During the fighting, Desyatnik was briefly wounded by machine gun fire in the leg but received treatment for it.
After four months in Ukraine, he returned back to Israel.
Desyatnik’s background
Desyatnik made aliyah from Uzbekistan to Israel 26 years ago and spent 14 years combined serving in the IDF, the Border Police’s undercover unit and the Israel Police special patrol unit Yasam, the report said.
Desyatnik is also a firearm instructor on the side and provides pre-military training to teenagers who will soon serve in combat roles in the IDF. Desyatnik says that Ukrainian military officials contact him asking to return, to which he responded that he’d consider it if he got paid to support his family, the report says.
He lives in Haifa with his wife, who is Ukrainian-Israeli, and their five children.