Riding Through: Ilia’s Way Back
Text by Lukasz Mackiewicz
Photos by Lukasz Mackiewicz and Viacheslav Onyshchenko
The deep hum of a motorbike cuts through the stillness of a backstreet in Odesa. Heads turn. Some in curiosity, others in disbelieve. A black Yamaha cruiser glides past—nothing flashy, but a statement nonetheless. Behind the handlebars is Ilia, a veteran and—most visibly—a man with a prosthetic leg.
In post-invasion Ukraine, such scenes have become commonplace. Since Russia’s full-scale assault in 2022, the country has been shaped by stories of survival, return, and adaptation. Yet, something about this scene sticks. It isn’t just that he’s riding—it’s how. Steady, upright, in control. No special gear, no visible modifications. Just a man and his machine, choosing motion over stillness.
Illia is from Vinnytsia, a city in central Ukraine. In 2023, while in combat, he was wounded in his right leg. “You need to save it” he told the doctors, still in shock but already aghast at what this meant for after. “I need to ride” The leg wasn’t saved. But his drive—to move, to live fully—was untouched.
Today, he rides a Yamaha Bolt—a cruiser he chose deliberately. At first, he had dreamed of an Enduro for rugged trails and mountain passes. But the cruiser matched his style. “It’s not about power” he says. “It’s about feeling.”
The bike shows no sign of having been refitted for Illia’s needs. He trained himself—first in a car, then on two wheels—learning how to brake with his prosthesis. Earning his motorcycle license wasn’t easy. At the licensing commission, the examiner didn’t even notice anything unusual—Ilia was wearing trousers. But when his prosthesis was revealed, the tone changed. “You can’t ride like this,” the doctor said. Ilia didn’t flinch. “Then take my truck license—Category C. But give me the A. I can ride.” And so, they did.
He’s rarely idle. When he’s not riding through Odesa’s quiet nighttime streets—his girlfriend Anna sometimes holding on behind him—he’s working with Vilni Voyiny, a local veterans’ NGO supporting recovery and reintegration through adaptive sport. On and off the court, Illia is a driving force. He trains with fellow wounded veterans in wheelchair basketball, adaptive tennis, archery, and even jiu-jitsu. In 2025, he proudly represented Ukraine at the Invictus Games in Canada, an international sporting event for injured servicemen and women founded by Prince Harry.
These days, his dream is to ride further—long tours through the Carpathians, into Transylvania, tracing the mountain roads and valleys where everything slows down. He hoped to do it this summer, but the work keeps piling up. Together with the team at the NGO, he’s organizing Odesa’s first adaptive sports tournament for veterans—a groundbreaking event aiming to bring movement, competition, and healing together.
So for now, he takes smaller trips—weekend escapes along sunflower-lined roads outside Odesa, or down to the coast where the air smells of sea salt and grass. His pace is intentional: no rush, no chase. Fast enough to feel alive, slow enough to see. “I want to hear the engine, feel the wind, smell the summer fields,” he says. “It clears your head.” There’s therapy in the ride. For Illia, this is a way of managing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), of staying centered. On the bike, he says, everything returns to the present. The rhythm of the road replaces the noise in his head.
At traffic lights, strangers sometimes pull up alongside and ask questions. They’ve spotted the prosthesis. “How do you ride?” they ask, incredulous. He doesn’t hold back. He wants others to know: Yes, it’s possible. He knows riders with more difficult setups—veterans with left-leg amputations, which affect clutch control and shifting. But even that, he says, isn’t a deal-breaker. “There are ways. Some bikes like Harley-Davidsons have options. It’s a challenge, not a limitation.”
And Odesa, for all its bustle and congestion, is a motorcyclist’s city in disguise. Traffic snarls and scarce parking don’t faze Ilia. He weaves through, finds space, rides free. No delays, no waiting.
You can find more info about the NGO on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vilnivoyiny/
