From Wall Street to the front: a Ukrainian woman left a prestigious job in the USA and went to war in Ukraine

The Ukrainian woman traveled all over the world, had ambitious plans in business and finance, worked on Wall Street at the largest US bank, but returned to defend Ukraine side by side with her family, reports “Ukrainian Truth".

Photo: IStock

Victoria Goncharuk is Ukrainian, a graduate of the innovative Minerva University in California. Now she is one of hundreds of combat medics at the front who save the lives of wounded soldiers while they save Ukrainians.

Life before full-scale war

Victoria grew up in the small town of Baranovka, Zhitomir region, in an ordinary family. Her parents never traveled outside of Ukraine, so from the age of 12 she began to earn extra money herself because she wanted to receive higher education abroad. She admits that in this desire she could only rely on herself.

On the subject: The rise of Ukrainian continues: Duolingo told which languages ​​were the most studied in 2023

As a teenager, Victoria received a grant from the cultural exchange program of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the US State Department - FLEX, under which she studied in high school in the USA, and after graduation in Lithuania. However, I studied there for only a year. According to Victoria, she realized that she could not spend four years in one place.

Then she learned about the organization Ukraine Global Scholars, which helps Ukrainian children receive free education in schools and universities abroad, including in the States.

“I grew up in a small community, and after I learned English and went to America via FLEX, I realized that there are a lot of interesting things outside of Ukraine. I always thought: we are such a big and free country, why can't we take our resources and use them to become a country that we can be proud of? - says Victoria. “I realized that for this we need to learn from the experience of other countries. So I had a plan to go study, work for a while, gain experience, return to Ukraine and make it the best country in the world.”

At the age of 15, under the FLEX program, she went to study in Texas, where she lived for a year, and after studying in Lithuania, she entered her dream university, as Vika calls it, Minerva University.

“This is a university based in California, but the most interesting thing about it is that you travel and live in different countries every semester,” she says.

During her first year of study, Victoria lived in San Francisco. Subsequently, the geography expanded significantly, and then the girl gained knowledge and experience in South Korea, India, Great Britain, Germany, Argentina, Taiwan, etc.

There she double majored in Computer Science and Statistics and Business and Finance. She was most interested in the combination and use of statistics and Data Science in business and finance.

During the last two years, Victoria wrote a scientific paper on the topic of M&A (Mergers and Acquisitions) of large companies. During her studies, she worked in startups such as Investment Analyst, Data Analyst, Financial Manager.

“My two specialties have always been intertwined in my work,” says Goncharuk.

After graduation, in 2022, Victoria worked in investment banking at Citigroup in the Investment Banking Department with technology companies, as well as in the investment banking department of a large holding company Morgan Stanley in New York.

From Wall Street to the Front Lines

When a full-scale war began, Victoria’s entire family – sister, mother and father – decided to join the ranks of the defenders of Ukraine.
In the first months of the Russian invasion, Victoria was engaged in volunteer activities - she threw herself into helping her relatives and the units where they served.

“My goal was to provide my family and their units with everything they needed. It turned into my little project, then into an NGO (non-governmental organization) which is registered in Britain. Before I came to Ukraine, this is what I was doing,” says the girl.

Victoria raised funds and supplied tactical medicine. Thanks to her sister, who worked in medical evacuation, Vika always knew what needed to be delivered when and where. However, she could not stay in the States for long, so in the winter of 2022 she decided that she should return to Ukraine and “help with her hands.”

The girl admits that this decision was a “big leap” for her. Mentally, she was preparing for the worst - that she would live “in the open air in a puddle” and not eat anything. Despite this, she notes that she “didn’t think twice” about leaving the warm New York office to help her family and her country.

“I worked on Wall Street for the largest bank in the country. The day before I left for Ukraine, we had a big special event with clients, and here I am, the next morning, boarding a plane, going to Ukraine, putting on my uniform and leaving. It was a cold winter, a very big contrast,” says Victoria. “I prepared myself for this and this is what I really wanted.” As soon as I found the opportunity to be on the front line, to work with my hands, to be part of the units, everything fell into place.”

By the way, she acquired the skills necessary to work as a combat medic during the military training of the Hospitallers, learned something from her sister and other combat medics, and the rest from experience on the front line.

About the most difficult choice

Victoria serves in one of the hottest directions of the front - Bakhmutsky. Before that she worked at Avdeevsky. Now she is the leader of her crew. For the past six months she has been working as a medic in the brigade where her sister serves as an attack aircraft.

As the combat medic explains, there are in total two stages of evacuation of the wounded: “keysevak” and “medevak”. “Keysevak” is the name given to the first link of evacuation from the front line, when an armored vehicle or pickup truck drives into the most difficult territories and evacuates the wounded from the battlefield to a stabilization point.

The Medevac is a medical crew that picks up the wounded from the Casevac and evacuates them to a stabilization point. At first, Vika worked at “casevac”, and then switched to “medevak”.

The crew team at the medevak stage must include a person with a higher or incomplete higher medical education.

“This person changes often. At first I had a doctor with too much experience, and he was taken to a stabilization point, and we were given a third person by the battalions with whom we worked,” she says. — In general, we work as a crew, just like mobilized military doctors. We're just an extra team. We go to the battlefield, pick up the wounded and give them to experienced doctors.”

According to Victoria, her team changed several times during the year of service, because the people on it work on a volunteer basis. Many people have a day job.

“They’ve been at work for a month, with me for a month. Right now, the most constant members of my team are me and my driver. My driver's cousin is my sister's commander, who, unfortunately, died in August of this year, just as we started working with them. The driver and I agreed on a common grief and continue to work together. The third person is a doctor,” shares Victoria.

The paramedic also spoke about the most difficult moments she had to face during her year of work at the front. The hardest thing, she says, is to make a decision in situations where the lives of other people depend on it.

“There were times when we came under shelling and we had to decide what we were doing: moving, finding shelter, not going to evacuate at all. This is a choice between evacuating a wounded person or hiding from fire. We need to weigh what the chance is that we will be injured or that the injured person will die if we do not evacuate him,” says Victoria.

In addition, there were situations when it was necessary to approach the battlefield in an unequipped vehicle. Then we had to carefully weigh all the risks.

“We drove a regular ambulance 500 meters to the collision zone. We understood that if something flew within 20 meters, we would be finished,” says the girl. “I still have a completely mutilated car with a broken windshield after one of these collisions, 10 meters from us. After that we had to decide what we were doing, so it could be stressful.”

Against the backdrop of the challenges that we face today, Vika remembers her training and experience in the USA with gratitude - she says that working on Wall Street strengthened her, because sometimes she had to work hard and tiringly, to stay awake for days, or even weeks, until she got it done exactly what is needed.

“Same here. If the enemy attacks, we do not sleep, we work. Sometimes you just have to wait, just like waiting four hours on Wall Street for someone to send you a financial model. Here you wait for the call to come. Very transferable skills (literally from English - transferable skills),” the girl says with a smile.

Frequent moves also played a significant role in her “hardening”. Thanks to this, Victoria has all the necessary vaccinations.

“It’s very good when you’re a combat medic because I’m in contact with blood. When gloves tear, you can become infected. But I lived in India, Korea, I have all the vaccinations. I can adapt quickly, I don’t need much to feel comfortable, so I didn’t have to get used to a minimalist life,” she says.

In addition to working as a paramedic, Victoria also participates in military-tech projects with Ukrainian developers.

“I consider one of the main priorities to be the development, use and implementation of AI in the processes of conducting military activities,” the girl notes.

"Everyone I want to spend my time with is at war"

As Victoria says, she has short vacations, but she still lives with her crew. He admits that it is difficult to see people on the home front who “disconnect from the war and think that it will bypass them.”

“I literally have 2-3 friends left. Unfortunately, I don’t even want to talk to them now; I still live with my crew. I always see my parents one day, another day to eat everything I wanted, and then I can come back,” she says. - No connection because of this. Everyone I want to spend my time with in the war. We have a couple of days off, we come with the people we live with on the front lines, in civilian life, and we live in our own bubble.”

You may be interested in: top New York news, stories of our immigrants, and helpful tips about life in the Big Apple - read all this on ForumDaily New York.

Considering how her life and realities have changed, the woman notes that she does not regret any of her choices. When asked what advice she would give to her 15-year-old self if she could, Victoria said: “I’m great. I don't have anything that I regret. I would work more on my physical fitness (laughs). I would tell her that no matter what profession or lifestyle you have, you need to be strong and in your best shape, because it’s hard physically now.”

About Victoria's experience as a woman in military service

According to Victoria Goncharuk, in the army, women and girls in their positions need to work “a little more” - there, as in society, there are also gender biases.

“Every newbie has to work to gain recognition, but girls need a little more because of the bias. But if you don’t give up and show that you are a good fighter, that you came there for the right purpose, and work until the last minute, you will receive respect from people,” says Victoria. — I think that the problems in the army are the same as in society. It's just a smaller version."

However, she denies the bad treatment of women in the army by men.

“I often hear that men treat girls badly in the army, but this is not entirely true. Many girls in Ukraine, unfortunately, position themselves as weak ones who need to be protected. But we must stand up for ourselves, stand up for Ukraine,” says the paramedic.

She is sure that the fight for Ukraine is the responsibility not of men, but of any of its citizens.

“Love for Ukraine is cultivated, and not necessarily from an early age. It's not something you can kill. My sister and I are perhaps a very good example,” concludes Victoria Goncharuk.

Read also on ForumDaily:

Tom Cruise rented an entire restaurant for a date with a Russian woman

How to quickly and for free find the right person on the Internet: tips and services

Boy who went missing in Britain six years ago has been found in France

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.