In death, his friend saved his life on a Ukrainian battlefield. Now he's honoring him with sport.

KYIV, Ukraine — Sharing cigarettes, jokes and the same first name, Volodymyr Dziubynskyi and Volodymyr Androshchuk bonded over the battlefield fighting Russian forces in Ukraine, as well as their shared love of sport during downtime away from the front lines.

“We knew everything about each other and helped each other in everything,” Dziubynskyi, 28, told NBC News in September. It was one of several interviews he gave over the course of months until June.

Dziubynskyi, a former rower, said he immediately hit it off with Androshchuk, a champion decathlete, as they went through military training together and the pair grew closer as they saw close combat.

Their bond was sealed when in death, Androshchuk saved his friend’s life for a second time.

As bitter fighting raged around the eastern city of Bakhmut on Jan. 25, 2023, Dziubynskyi, said their unit, the 95th Air Assault Brigade, were surrounded by Russian forces who bombarded them with tank and mortar fire.

He said they dived into adjoining trenches, adding that as he came out of a daze he realized he was bleeding from his nose and his ears.

Then he heard screaming from the other trench.

Eventually he was able to make his way over, “I immediately saw Vova,” Dziubynskyi said, using a shortened version of their shared name.

“They are shooting at you, and you just don’t care. You just stand there, look down and see that he is no longer alive,” he added. “At that moment, tears rolled down my cheeks.”

His survival instincts quickly kicked in when he realized he was in a sniper’s crosshairs.

“One of my armor plates got hit,” he said. “I screamed at the top of my lungs because it hurt like hell. So I pulled Vova over to my other side, and he became my shield at that point.”

“There was no saving him, but he could still save me,” he added.

Draping his friend’s body over his back, Dziubynskyi said the shots kept coming.

It was the second time his friend had proved his guardian angel, Dziubynskyi said, adding that Androshchuk had already saved him from a Russian soldier when in Dec. 2022 they came face to face in a trench, shooting him from behind his back.

Sporting bond

Although it was fighting that brought them together, it was their love of sport that cemented their friendship after they met at military training in Nov. 2022, nine months after Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion.

Dziubynskyi, a rower who had competed for Ukraine at the World Championships said he immediately got along with Androshchuk, who had been a national youth champion in decathlon in which athletes compete in 10 track and field events.

“We were very alike in terms of stubbornness and strength,” Dziubynskyi said. “I was sharing my bullets with him, I taught him how to shoot, how to move through the forest, and how to storm a position.”

Dziubynskyi, who was a policeman in his home city of Mykolaiv in southern Ukraine before the war, added that he shared some of the knowledge he’d picked up on the job with his new friend.

Assigned to the same unit as rocket-propelled grenade shooters, the pair were posted to the eastern city of Lyman, where they were quickly embroiled in the action.

“People were shocked by our team work,” Dziubynskyi said. “Me and Vova were creating hell fire for the enemy.”

At one point they destroyed a Russian T-90 tank, he said.

Feeling invincible, they often teased the Russians in the trenches, shouting and swearing at them, and playing Ukrainian pop music or the national anthem in an attempt to intimidate them, he added.

“They say that athletes are like a big family. And it really is that way. We feel each other,” he said. “We never thought about death. We wanted to live. We wanted to win this war together,” he added.

It wasn’t to be, as his friend became one of 488 athletes killed in action since the war started, Ukraine’s sport ministry told NBC News last month.

With his past as a high-profile athlete, Androshchuk’s funeral made national and international headlines, but Dziubynskyi was unable to attend as he was recovering from the injuries he sustained on the day his friend saved him.

Sent to Ukraine’s capital Kyiv to recuperate, the dark days were brightened after he met Oksana, 26, an auditor, who is now his fiancée. He said they planned to get married next month.

Back to the battlefield

Within just a few months, Dziubynskyi said he told his commanders he was ready to return to the front lines and he was sent to the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman on April 6, 2023.

Within three days his life would change again when a Russian shell exploded a few feet from where he was standing.

As pain seared through him, the extent of his injury was made clear when another soldier crawled over to him and told him, “Your leg is missing.”

In fact, it was hanging on by a thread, but with blood pumping out of his body, Dziubynskyi said the fear set in.

“I was afraid of dying because I saw a man die in my arms with exactly the same injury,” he said. “I was scared of that. I did not want to die.”

He made it out, evacuated to a hospital in Dnipro. But after he regained consciousness Dziubynskyi said there was no feeling in his left leg, even when a doctor slammed it with his fist, so medics made it clear that amputation was the only option.

Without Oksana, Dziubynskyi said he doubted he would have made it from the dark place he was in.

“For the first two months she literally fed me. She’d lift me and feed me. She’d wash my hair and my body. She did everything,” he said, adding “she pulled me out of hell.”

Rowing return

As Oksana helped him to grow stronger, his old passion for rowing also returned, which Dziubynskyi said helped him to channel his grief and give him a new focus, particularly with the Paris Paralympic Games around the corner.

Although he trained hard, doctors decided they could not clear him to compete due to the recent nature of injury.

Not to be put off, Dziubynskyi said it made him more determined to make the Los Angeles games in four years.

“I want to prove that the absence of a leg is not a life sentence,” he said, adding that he will dedicate any victory to the man who saved his life. “Any medal I win, I will mention Vova,” he said.

Dziubynskyi, who always wears a bracelet sent to him by Androshchuk’s sister Lyudmila, added that he would never forget his friend.

“He is always with me and will always be,” he said.

Charlotte Gardiner and Richard Engel reported from Kyiv. Yuliya Talmazan reported from London.