Lukashenko arranged lap of honour on ice arena for Donbass guy in wheelchair
On January 21st, the President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko, arranged a lap of honour on the ice arena for a guy in a wheelchair from Donbass at the end of a hockey match, BelTA reports
On Saturday, the President’s team played with the Mogilev Region squad, beating them with a score of 7:2. Among the fans in the stands was a guest from Donbass: a native of Donetsk, Pavel Prokhorenkov.
It was to him that the Head of State arranged a lap of honour on the ice hockey rink. Video from the Olympic Arena appeared in the Pul Pervogo Telegram channel. “This guy received a standing ovation from the stands,” the authors of the channel wrote.
Pavel Prokhorenkov admitted that he was not very fond of hockey, but at one time he skated. Anyway, he particularly enjoyed the current match. “The game was tense and very interesting. Emotions are indescribable,” he admitted a little later to reporters.
The guy came to Belarus in 2022 for treatment. The fact is that Pavel is a military man, joining the army back in 2017 and rising to the rank of lieutenant in the artillery in five years. By the beginning of the Russian special operation, he was already in charge of a platoon. In spring 2022, his equipment was blown up by a mine and shrapnel hit the officer’s legs. In the Donetsk hospital, one leg was amputated, and Pavel was sent to Belarus to save the other leg. The doctors of the Minsk Regional Clinical Hospital managed to save his second leg – it was literally assembled like a mosaic.
While still in the Donetsk hospital, Pavel married his pregnant girlfriend. A little later, their son Miroslav was born, Pavel saw him only in the photo, while he was preparing for a serious operation in Belarus. But a few months later the family reunited in Minsk.
“Now Pavel is undergoing rehabilitation. He and his family dream of becoming citizens of our country. They fell in love with Belarus very much,” they wrote in the Pul Pervogo channel.
“My grandmother is Belarusian, and she told me a lot. It was always very interesting to visit her homeland. Let it be in this way, but I managed tov visit. The society here is much better than anywhere else. People here are much kinder, i.e., the attitude of people is completely different,” said Pavel Prokhorenkov.
