The Bachelor: How a double amputee became Ukraine’s most desirable man

Oleksandr is always on the go, telling me he spent the previous night filming a music video.

His life wasn’t always like this. In the years before Russia’s full-scale invasion, he was working as a barista in a Kyiv restaurant while studying graphic design.

He says his dreams were “down to earth”: travelling, discovering the world, and growing professionally. He wanted to start a family.

But Oleksandr’s life was turned upside down two years ago, when he became one of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men to join the army.

In August 2022, he was stationed near Izyum, an occupied city on the front lines of the Russian advance. It was invaded in the early days of the war and used by Russia as a key military hub to supply its forces from the east.

The city was liberated by Kyiv just a month after Oleksandr was seriously injured while defending the nearby Ukrainian position.

“I felt the earth shift onto me. I felt a terrible pain in my legs and realised that it would mean the amputation of my legs,” he said.

“I screamed from horrific pain and shouted for people to hear me.”

He says he knew his comrades were alive, and they dug him out of the ground and provided first aid. But that’s when he knew his legs were badly hurt.

“I understood that I had lost my legs at the moment of injury, two or three seconds after I felt the pain.”

Oleksandr survived but much of Izyum was left in ruins. At the time, authorities said they had found more than 400 bodies in graves near the city.