The skies are very clear and quiet, plus birds can be heard chirping in the trees and shrubs overhead. Amosov explains the evening as “calm. ”
But for many Ukrainians, such moments have been few and far between since The ussr began its attack on February twenty-four and every few methods, Amosov is reminded of the destruction Vladimir Putin’s war has taken to his homeland.
In April, local authorities said around 50% associated with Irpin’s critical infrastructure had been destroyed.
“It’s hard to look at your town that was once full of happiness, life, ” Amosov, a famous world champion, informs CNN Sport in an exclusive interview from Ukraine.
“It was always very beautiful here, people were happy, they were pleased with their life plus took pleasure within it.
“Then simply to look at the town now, which is on fire, which is getting ruined and it becomes horrible to look at. You couldn’t really go driving around the city because the roads were covered with trees, in some places, there were parts of homes. Destruction. ”
The Ukrainian is one of the best pound-for-pound fighters of his generation and, at 26-0, currently holds the longest energetic unbeaten streak in all of MMA. On May 13, he should have been defending his welterweight entire world title at Bellator’s event at Wembley Arena in London.
Amosov was running after Khabib Nurmagomedov’s perfect unbeaten record associated with 29-0 and had been scheduled to fight Michael Page in the highly-anticipated bout, just before Russia’s invasion associated with Ukraine forced him to pull out.
The 28-year-old had returned home from a training camping in Thailand four days before the battle began. Once Russian troops began advancing, Amosov says he or she took his wife and six-month-old kid to safety on the outskirts of Ukraine before joining the territorial defense to aid civilians in and around Irpin.
War’s grim reality rapidly became apparent.
“In the very first days, it was very hard to look at, to get used to all these events, to look at how people are running from their houses, ” Amosov recalls. “Not everyone could leave, some people had parents who they couldn’t leave behind, who had been very elderly and can’t move correctly.
“People are running… acquiring their children, taking their parents in their hands and running, sobbing, they don’t know what to undertake. People are running with their pets.
“I saw this situation when an enthusiast was running holding a child in his hands. The child’s items were all protected in blood, but the blood was not their, it was his dad’s. The mother was working behind. I can’t say for sure in the end what happened to the child’s father, but it’s very hard to view.
“The child has been probably aged two or three, but he failed to even understand what was happening, I didn’t hear him crying and moping, he was simply probably in some a fantasy shock. ”
Such was the frantic nature of these first few days of the invasion, Amosov and his friends — who also he says had never ever held guns just before — were only given brief schooling on how to operate their own weapons as battling had already started in the city.
Amosov states one of the moments which has stuck with him most came a few weeks afterwards, once much of the city had been liberated from Russian occupation.
His team had been going around Irpin to distribute aid and discovered civilians who had been hiding in basements for nearly a month with restricted food and water.
He vividly recalls one particular man they discovered breaking down in holes after being given some bread. “Seeing a person crying just because he is holding a piece of bread is very painful and very painful to view, ” recounts Amosov.
A week ago, Irpin mayor Oleksandr Markushin said inside a statement that the body of 290 civilians have been recovered in the town since the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Markushin said 185 of the dead were identified, the majority of who were men. The reason for death was “shrapnel and gunshot injuries. ” At least five of the dead suffered brain injuries and starvation, according to Markushin.
In total, more than eight million people have been in house displaced in Ukraine, according to the latest review from the International Corporation for Migration (IOM), an United Nations company.
‘You want to defend this country’
In his darkest moments, Amosov admits he failed to know whether he would survive the day to be able to bed each night. What kept him going, he says, was the “crazy help” and kindness of Ukrainian citizens every day.
Amosov and his group would often not have time to consume until the evening, yet were regularly fulfilled at the roadside by civilians who experienced cooked food and brewed hot drinks for all those helping the Ukraine war effort.
Even individuals with almost nothing would attempt to give the soldiers something, sometimes just a chocolate bars bar.
“I’m proud that we get people like that and that we live in a wonderful country like this, inch he says.
While Amosov survived the most severe of the fighting within Irpin, not everybody he fought alongside was as lucky. After taking a couple of days away to go plus visit his spouse and son, Amosov says he returned to find one of the young men who had joined up with the territorial protection with him had died.
“It’s hard to view when a mother buries her child great girlfriend, who prepared a future with him, is standing presently there too, ” he or she recalls. “This will be our home, our own families live right here and we want items to go back as they were. We lived a good life, we were at ease with everything.
“When a person look at all of these people, women, children, possibly those mothers who seem to buried their children, when you see what is happening to your city, when your city is on fire, you want to assist and you want to defend this city, this particular country. ”
Last 30 days, a video Amosov submitted of himself recuperating his Bellator world championship belt through his mother’s home in Irpin went viral.
In the video, Amosov climbs back up a ladder in the house having a plastic handbag, which he starts to reveal the particular belt.
He laughs and says he had been “getting the belt for the second time” and later published a photo of him holding the name aloft while surrounded by a group within military uniform.
“At that moment, it was nice because the belt was safe and sound, ” he says. “It has been nice that my mom hid it nicely and it survived which day Russian soldiers were retreating from our part of Ukraine, so the mood was much better.
“But at the same time, I am standing here at this point and it’s calm within our city and it’s all good, but I understand plus know what’s going on consist of cities and it’s difficult to just laugh along with friends, it’s difficult to be in a good disposition because after Seems in these situations whenever there’s bombing all the time and there is capturing. ”
‘This is usually destruction’
One day during the war, Amosov states his friends made him aware of a fan of his, a young guy who used to practice martial arts but now found himself injured within hospital.
Amosov began texting the boy and soon arranged to look and visit your pet. When he arrived, Amosov was emaciated to find that this young fan, who was just 20 years old, had lost both associated with his legs in the fighting.
“I don’t understand why people don’t believe what’s going on here, they believe that [Russia] have a ‘special operation’ going on for conserving people, ” he says, referencing the euphemistic description used by Russian officials to describe the particular country’s invasion of Ukraine.
“But you take a look at what’s happening to Mariupol, look at all of the other cities that we get in Ukraine which were damaged and many civilians died who simply wanted to live. They will didn’t want any war, they were satisfied with everything.
“I don’t understand just how one could fight so cruelly, not simply by any rules. I possess this impression it’s far almost like something not human. How can you work like this? How many people were injured? How many died? How many lost their particular houses? And they talk about saving? This is not conserving, this is destruction. ”
Once the fighting within Irpin began to subside, Amosov says he immediately returned to his mixed martial arts education.
Logan Storley was the jet fighter brought in to replace Amosov for Friday’s round against Page and the Ukrainian says they are itching to return to the cage and will be watching keenly to see whom wins.
“Now [I’m] restoring my shape… I want to return, ” he says. “I want the whole of our own country to return in order to its previous lifetime and I would want to protect my belt. inch
Amosov admits he would not know when which will be, but he does know what his home nation will look like once the war is lastly over.
“For every resident of Ukraine, she could look like that greatest country in the world, the most beautiful and the most loved. ”