Ukraine’s ‘The Bachelor’ features amputee veteran: NPR

KIEV, Ukraine — Oleksandr Budko looks like a leading man. He has sandy hair and blue eyes, muscular, tattooed arms and a chiseled movie star face.

“I’m a military veteran, an activist, a writer and a Bachelor,” he said on the Ukrainian version of this season of the popular reality TV series.

The Bachelor (Khorostyak in Ukrainian) is produced by Starlight Media and Warner Bros. International Television and broadcast on the Ukrainian channel STB. This season, the 13th season, premiered on November 1st.

In one episode, Budko goes on a rock-climbing date with a wholesome translator named Inna Bielian.

“Oh my god,” she said as she dangled from the cliff.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be right behind you,” he said as he helped her scale the rock wall.

What isn’t said is that Budko does this with a prosthetic leg, but it’s clearly visible because he’s wearing shorts. He is a double amputee. He represents tens of thousands of Ukrainians who have lost limbs since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. An adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Sports and Youth estimated that last year the number was around 100,000.

Their visibility in fashion magazines, catwalks, and now on popular reality shows shows how much the war has affected Ukraine.

“Yet,” he said in an interview with NPR, “there’s still an issue of bias. I went on ‘The Bachelor’ to address that.”

“That’s when I realized I was going to lose my leg.”

Budko, 28, grew up in western Ukraine and was working as a barista in a Kiev coffee shop when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He enlisted and soon found himself on the front lines. That summer, his unit stalled in an attempt to drive Russian forces out of northeastern Ukraine. During a lull in the fighting, the troops decided to rest. Budko was lying in the ditch.

“Then something hit and the ditch collapsed,” he said.

Russian troops bombarded the trenches. Budko was buried in the earth, writhing in pain as his fellow soldiers dug him out.

“I was conscious the whole time,” he says. “And that’s when I also realized I was going to lose my leg.”

Budko recovered through intensive and often excruciating physical therapy. He is passionate about sports and competed in swimming at the 2023 Invictus Games. He also wrote books and performed in modern ballet.

“There was no point in me being angry at anyone or anything about what happened,” he said. “I should have done something good instead.”

At the opening of The Bachelor, he hops on his motorcycle, stuffs a red rose into his leather vest jacket, and rides off at breakneck speed. Each episode features beautiful young women vying for his attention, often incorporating the melodrama typical of reality shows.

“I wanted to show what’s possible,” he says. “I wanted to give people faith.”

“You are examples of courage and heroism.”

He’s talking about fellow wounded veterans. Budko frequently visits them, but they are a tough crowd, exhausted, skeptical, and emotionally distant.

“They never express their feelings of failure,” he says.

On a recent afternoon, he stopped by a Kiev hospital where dozens of veterans are recovering from amputations. When he hears their cries of pain during physical therapy, he cringes.

Budko walks into a room full of wounded soldiers sitting on beds in wheelchairs. He introduces himself by his military call sign, “Teren.” It is the name of a wild plum with thorns. In Ukrainian folklore, it symbolizes an obstacle and overcoming it.

“Don’t just focus on your injuries, because remember that you are examples of courage and heroism,” he tells the soldiers. “You are not disabled.”

Rostislav Andrusenko, a doctor helping the men recover, said many were depressed. They fear that they will become useless to their families and society.

“They ask me if I can walk like before, play soccer with my friends, help the kids,” Andrusenko says.

Budko gives encouragement to the soldiers and tells some jokes that don’t really get across. When he finished, the men applauded politely and asked many practical questions, including where to get the best prosthetic limbs.

Mykola Kovalenko, a married father of two, suffered severe leg injuries from a landmine explosion on the front lines, which may require amputation. He asks Budko how to get through the medical bureaucracy, which he equates to “passing through the seven rings of hell.”

Budko promises to help, and Kovalenko finally smiles. He said his wife and two teenage daughters love this season of The Bachelor.

“What he’s doing is very helpful,” Kovalenko says. “He teaches players like me, players who are injured, that all is not lost, that you should not give up, that you should keep trying.”

Budko said soldiers rarely talk to him about their feelings about relationships and self-image. However, he will give you his phone number in case you want to talk sometime.

“Everyone has sensitive topics that they’re embarrassed to talk about,” he says. These include fear of intimacy and of being pitied by a potential partner.

love and war

The war also had an impact on the women who appeared on the show. One is a widow whose husband was killed on the front lines. The other is a military man. Inna Birien, who acted as an interpreter on the day of the rock climbing, is also a humanitarian volunteer who collects supplies and sends them to the Ukrainian army.

NPR met her at her stylish apartment in the Kyiv district, where Russian drone attacks are common. She talks about Vadim, a soldier she loved who was killed early in the war. She says she was still holding out hope when she got the call about him.

“I remember thinking, Lord, I want him to be alive even if he’s missing arms and legs, because it’s better to come back without limbs than to come back at all. “It’s better than nothing,” she says.

Still, many Ukrainians have a hard time talking to wounded veterans, she said.

“If you see a soldier, you’re told to say thank you and put your hand on your chest,” Bielian said. “Asking about disconnection, whether it crosses personal boundaries or not, is still new to us.”

Budko says the series helped show people that it’s okay to ask questions, especially when it comes to intimacy.

“For example, ‘Does it hurt to touch that limb?'” he says.

Budko says he feels he did something good with the show. And he now has a girlfriend, but he hasn’t made it clear whether it’s Bielian, who he says is in love with him, or someone else.

He says he can’t reveal anything until Friday’s season finale.