Anatoliy Dreval, 71, was a car service specialist and former racer and stuntman.Natalia Dreval-Pechorina
When Ukrainian photographer Natalia Dreval-Pechorina fled her country with her 13-year-old daughter, Lia, in early March, her father was among the family she left behind.
A few weeks after leaving their Kyiv suburb of Brovary, the pair was living in the small French city of Bouconvillers.
Dreval-Pechorina began posting notes to her father, whom she could not reach, on her Facebook page: “Daddy, I’ve got a lot of help here from locals, but I do believe that it is you who helps me here, through the hands of others. Because you are my dad, and I know that you love me so much.”
She didn’t know it, but her father, Anatoliy Dreval, 71, was shot by a Russian soldier around the same time she left Ukraine. His body was found only after the Ukrainian army liberated the Kyiv region in early April. She did not learn of his death until later that month, from police and volunteers.
Her last conversation with her father, who owned a car-service station in the small village of Mila, was on March 2, the day she began her journey out of Ukraine, when he called her to ask if she was okay. “I’m okay, Dad,” she recalled on Facebook. She told him she was waiting for the train to Lviv with her daughter.
“Dad screamed with joy: ‘Honey! Are you on the train already? You are smart! I’m so glad! You are such a good girl!’”
“I thought he was crying with happiness. I have never heard such a happy voice from him. He said he was proud of my son. I told him “see you soon!’” Dreval-Pechorina wrote on Facebook.
Like her father, Dreval-Pechorina’s son, IIarion, 16, had decided to stay in Ukraine, with family in Brovary. She said her father’s decision to remain in his house even as the Russian army approached made an impression on Ilarion, who tried to join the Ukrainian army. But the soldiers told him he was too young.
Later Dreval-Pechorina found out her father had telephoned his grandson on the same day he called her. He said that he loved him and was proud of him for taking care of Dreval-Pechorina’s mother, his grandmother, who also remained in Ukraine.
“This is the last thing that was heard from him.”
Not knowing her beloved father’s fate, Dreval-Pechorina continued to text and post open letters on Facebook to him almost every day, describing her life as a refugee.
'We are proud of you, Dad. No tears. I remember – you do not like any tears,' wrote Dreval-Pechorina after learning of her father's death.Natalia Dreval-Pechorina
March, 25 – Today is mother’s birthday.
April 5 – We love you so much, Dad! And we will keep texting to your Viber account, although you do not answer.
April, 9 – We are still trying to find you, Dad. People are so kind to us here. They give cosmetics to our women.
April 12 – Dad, today we were in Paris. It is a great event for us, you know. Usually we rarely go away even from Brovary, but now it was real, Paris! But I will not take a selfie in front of the Eiffel Tower, I don’t know why.
April 13 – Dad, your birthday was on Annunciation, just wanted to remind you that I’ve sent you a postcard.
April 15 – I did not text you anything yesterday, sorry, Dad. Mother told me that Moskva was destroyed. I was so happy to hear this, but she explained to me that she meant not the city, but only the warship Moskva.
Eventually, Dreval-Pechorina would learn of the events that led to her father’s death from neighbours who witnessed various occurrences.
In late February, when the Ukrainian army was leaving villages near Kyiv, Anatoliy Dreval was repairing cars for Ukrainian soldiers. He was widely known as a qualified car service specialist and former racer and stuntman.
Ukrainian soldiers offered to evacuate him in an armoured personnel vehicle as the situation worsened. But he declined.
”Everyone has a possibility to choose how to die,” Dreval-Pechorina wrote on Facebook, adding that she understood why he could not take the easy way out by fleeing the war. “It would be a torture for you. Because you always were the racer, you are the stuntman. You were a champion for car racing in the USSR and in Europe. You keep participating in car racing at 71 years old.
“And you chose to die, protecting your land.”
When the Russians arrived, they were angry at Dreval’s dogs and shot two of them. When he went outside and saw them, he told them to get lost, using a choice expletive.
Dreval's decision to stay was influential on all of his family.Natalia Dreval-Pechorina
After finding out about his death, Dreval-Pechorina texted him: “You said it like the marines from Snake Island, Dad!” She was referring to an incident early in the war, when a group of Ukrainian troops stationed on the outpost island in the Black Sea famously swore at a Russian warship.
The soldiers shot Dreval in the head and then lived in his house for several days. When they left, they burned it down.
“That’s why your body was so difficult to recognize. But your arms, arms which raised up three kids, were recognized by the relatives,” Dreval-Pechorina wrote on April 20.
“We are not trying to find you anymore, Dad.”
“We are proud of you, Dad. No tears. I remember – you do not like any tears.”
“You must be proud of your grandson, Daddy. You give him an example of how to be brave.”
Dreval-Pechorina continued to text him.
April 27 – Your decision to stay influenced all of us. Your grandson, me, mother.
Now, I do understand how much each person can do on his own.
But your decision led to the situation when we lost you, Dad.
I want to tell your story to everyone. To the whole world.
Your history, the history of the hero of Ukraine. And my hero.
Yesterday night I had a dream. It was a call from you. I saw my phone ringing and the letters “Daddy.”
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