While India is launching operations to bring its students back home from war-torn Ukraine, there is one braveheart who decided to stay back and fight for the country. The 21-year-old youth from Tamil Nadu, Sainikhesh Ravichandran didn’t even inform his family before joining the Georgian National Legion, Ukraine’s paramilitary unit of voluntary soldiers.

© Twitter/NewsIADN

According to reports from TOI, he wanted to join the Indian Army and even attempted twice after he completed his schooling in 2018. However, he couldn’t make it into the Indian Armed Forces since he was not of the appropriate height to be selected. 

Indian Army requires the candidates to be at least 157.5 cm in height (with relaxation up to 5 cms for candidates belonging to northeastern regions). 

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Upon failing the height criteria, Ravichandran then enrolled in National Aerospace University, Kharkiv in 2018 where he has been an aerospace engineering student. He also tried to join the US embassy but couldn't. He had been working a part-time job in a video game developing firm for a month. 

When the opportunity to take up arms presented itself, he signed up for Ukraine's paramilitary unit to fight against Russia. 

© BCCL

His family had no clue that he had taken up arms and got to know about Sainikhesh from the news and other people. A family friend told TOI, “When the war broke out, he was incommunicado for four days. That’s when we saw a report about a Tamil Nadu youth joining Ukrainian forces and we were shocked,”. His family tried to persuade him to come back home but he refused.

© Facebook/Sainikhesh Ravichandran

This proves that he is a soldier at heart who is fighting for the country he has been living in for almost four years now. We can only pray for his safe return. 

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