Photon – a warrior of the Sun. As a lieutenant became the technical heart of the Achilles regiment

Nobody knows how the sky works. But it's not certain. If Kyiv power engineer Viktor Khomenko hadn't taken the call sign Photon, he would be called Einstein. Today, his main task is to study how the sky works.

One of the battalion officers says this about him: "He made the first UAV detection and countermeasure devices with his own hands. He created electronic warfare and electronic warfare systems. If earlier only a missile could destroy enemy air defenses on Russian territory, now our FPVs can. Much has become possible thanks to Photon. He is a practical scientist, he is our Einstein."

A photon is a particle of radiation that exists in constant motion and only in it. Viktor Khomenko is constantly flying somewhere, giving commands, appearing and disappearing at various military locations. All this with phenomenal speed. Arranging a meeting with him is not so easy. Finally, it works.

The meaning of life

First impression: a very easy person. As befits the element of light – radiates goodwill, smiles, shakes hands. Photon’s workspace – several tables against the wall with large monitors. It immediately seems that the owner of the office is simultaneously in several places on the planet. From the first minutes of the conversation, a second impression is formed: a very complex person.

He takes the idea of giving an interview coolly:

– Do you write stories?

– Yes.

– Why? – Photon's gaze becomes serious and somewhat sad.

– What for?

– Why do you write stories?

– Because they are interesting. Through stories, people learn about the world and, perhaps, something about themselves.

– What if they get distorted information? Why…

– Well, we come to the question, why live?

– That's right. Do you have an answer? – the look and intonation leave no doubt about the seriousness of the question.

To be honest, I have several versions, but at that moment I was confused. Photon had to give his own answer and it is as follows:

– To die.

After that, it becomes clear that there will be no classic story "about a soldier." After a short (but effective) pause, he continues:

– However, it is important how you die. Do you know who Lubomyr Husar is?

– Of course.

– In one of his interviews, he talked about the meaning of life. You need to live in such a way as to be worthy of consciously accepting the gift of death…

– Did your worldview change during the war?

– Yes. Now I can say that the meaning of my life is accepting and knowing myself, as well as consciously accepting the fact of my death.

– How long did it take?

– About a year. Sorry.

Photon is distracted by a phone conversation. He scans the screens with his eyes, says to someone: "Yes, there's a technician in this landing, refueling at eleven, I'll drop the signature now... That's it, I'm in touch." He returns to the conversation:

– I have to be at a meeting in two hours.

It turns out that the meeting is to take place about 50 kilometers from here. So the conversation continues in the car. Photon talks about higher matters as if they were some urgent, practical, basic things. As if every simplest action can have a direct relationship to good and evil. Probably, in war it is. And perhaps not only in war.

The Devil at the Train Station

– Do you know where the devil was recorded in the 20th century? – Photon’s voice remains serious. – In Ukraine. He was seen in 1939 in Kyiv, at the train station. I think he is still here. You should watch a lecture by historian Yaroslav Hrytsak…

This is a lecture entitled "Where is the World Heading" for master's students at the Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU), delivered in 2017. In it, Yaroslav Hrytsak lists the destructive trends of modern history and concludes that civilization is programmed for self-destruction: "Everything that has a beginning has an end."

The devil in this context is the quintessence of destructive trends inherent in human nature. The ancestor of evil can be treated as a metaphor. But this metaphor is so obvious that it seems to cease to be a metaphor. Politicians and thinkers of the 20th century during World War II felt the presence of the devil in the world. "They saw him," said Hrytsak.

During the lecture, the historian recalled an episode in the life of the young Polish poet Czesław Milosz (future Nobel Prize laureate in literature), who encountered the devil in late 1939 at the Kyiv train station when he got off the Bucharest train on the way to Vilnius. What or whom the poet met is unknown. But it was there and then, Milosz would later write, that he saw "the devil at work."

– The devil appears where new meanings arise, – explains Foton. – His task is to resist development. Development and creation are in nature, but destruction is also in nature, in particular in human nature. Ukraine is now a place of collision of these forces. That is why the devil is here.

Light and darkness

Viktor Khomenko was born on April 26, 1988 in a village near Kyiv. When he was two years old, his father died, leaving an unfinished house. In 2000, the family moved to Kyiv and Viktor and his sister were enrolled in a physics and mathematics lyceum. Physics became the student's favorite subject. Later, like most lyceum graduates, he entered the Kyiv Polytechnic Institute.

These are not just dry biographical facts – they are a coincidence of circumstances and, at the same time, the steps that the future engineer climbed. "I was a schoolboy when my mother said that the house that my father left me would have to be completed for me," he recalls. "Since then, I have fantasized: what and how to do to make it the perfect house."

Victor's thoughts about the house did not leave him during his student years. He studied at the Faculty of Electronics. "At that time," Foton continues, "interesting technological solutions began to appear. Renewable energy, in particular solar energy, was developing. I was constantly thinking: what solar panels are best to install, what batteries are needed for them..."

The desire to create a "house of the sun" led to a deepening interest in the nature of light, and over time – darkness. Because energy is not only physics. It is worth remembering that Viktor's birthday is April 26. This is the International Day of Remembrance for the Chernobyl Disaster.

Why did this catastrophe happen, what needs to be done to prevent it from happening again – questions that the Universe reminded him of every birthday.

Energy transition

What are the essence of his scientific interests as a physicist? Viktor Khomenko smiles: "To understand the context, it makes sense to read historian Serhiy Plokhiy's "Chernobyl. The History of the Nuclear Catastrophe" and cultural scientist Oleksandr Etkind's "The Nature of Evil. Raw Materials and the State."

A small spoiler of these works could sound, for example, like this. Social good is a consequence of development and improvement, in particular technological. Evil is archaism, simplification, degradation, resistance to development.

Now about how it works in energy. There is such a thing as an energy transition. This is when the world economy is reorganizing from one basic energy source to another. For example, from firewood to coal. From coal to oil. Next comes the expansion of gas use. Now the process of the fourth energy transition is underway: from hydrocarbons to renewable energy sources, namely wind, solar, etc.

It is not only about the economic feasibility of using new energy sources. It is about preventing evil: nuclear catastrophes, climate catastrophes, toxic geopolitical relations (the dependence of democracies on raw material countries). So, energy is, once again, about good and evil. About light and darkness.

Being on the side of good and light for the young engineer meant implementing new technologies. The topic of his PhD thesis is related to solar power plants and "smart grids", which are automated self-regulating energy systems.

Since 2014, he has focused on creating energy sustainability systems that would overcome dependence on Russian energy carriers. If scientific ideas and developments had been instantly implemented, Ukraine could have long ago been able to prepare for the energy challenges of a major war.

"Smart grids" are capable of switching to "island mode", operating autonomously for some time and thus ensuring energy independence of settlements. To implement such tasks, it is advisable to generate energy from renewable sources. This issue, in fact, was addressed by Viktor Khomenko.

He worked on his dissertation, co-authored several scientific publications. The idea of "energy democracy" in Ukraine gradually ceased to be a utopia for him, and turned into a plan that took on concrete outlines. "I saw my meaning in creation, in changing people's lives for the better," he recalls that period of his life.

Suddenly, the picture shattered into pieces – the devil played a game of chance: a full-scale invasion began.

With a laptop in the army

Viktor signed up for the Military District three days before the start of the Great War:

– In February 2022, it was already clear to me personally that a full-scale invasion was on the verge. A week before it began, I decided to join the ranks of the defense, passed a medical examination, prepared documents, signed a contract. I was told that they would call me if something suddenly happened…

– Did you call?

– No.

On February 24, like most Kyiv residents, he woke up to the explosions and understood everything. That same day, he took his mother to a village near Kyiv, because he believed that the capital would be the most dangerous place during active hostilities. Then he helped his ex-girlfriend buy the necessary things.

– What else could I do for my family, for my friends, for all those I love? I wanted to protect them. I never felt like a soldier, but I simply saw no other way out in the face of a full-scale invasion. Protecting them was important to me personally.

– Listen, there is some linguistic egoism in these words. You seem to be emphasizing the "I" when you say "it was important for me to protect them personally," before that you said that the meaning of your life is "acceptance and knowledge of yourself," as well as about consciously "accepting the fact of "your death"…

– Everything is correct. Because I know that I will die. This is a state when a person is left alone with himself. Therefore, I say correctly, because the salvation of my soul is important to me. You can take this phrase as a metaphor.

– Do you know loneliness?

– This is my ideal state. I am a self-sufficient person. I make important decisions alone.

On the evening of February 24, Viktor Khomenko went to look for the headquarters of the Ukrainian Revolutionary Military District. At that moment, thousands of Kyiv residents were pouring into the ranks of the Armed Forces. Some were carrying backpacks with ammunition, others came with their own weapons. Viktor Khomenko arrived with a laptop:

– Because this subject is a part of my life, I always have it with me.

So he became a soldier in the rifle company of the TRO. In his unit, and perhaps in the entire company, he was the only soldier with a laptop. The thing turned out to be useful in the very first days.

The company was transferred to the Chaika airfield near Kyiv. Viktor and his comrades set up a sleeping place in the basement of a building. This basement eventually turned into a weapons warehouse. And Viktor began to keep track of the "warehouse stocks" – a laptop became extremely necessary.

"On the very first night, they brought in ammunition, assault rifles, machine guns, even Nlaw (a Swedish-British short-range anti-tank complex. – Ed. note). I opened the laptop then and was the first to find out what Nlaw was. I became responsible for accounting for weapons and ammunition," Viktor recalls.

In addition, he began to keep a register of personnel. Sometimes he had to come up with call signs for newly-minted soldiers. At the same time, he also took a call sign for himself – Photon.

– The brothers Alpinist and Ulysses had mountaineering radios. They had to be flashed, and I have everything for this – a laptop and a cable… Once the commander asks me: "Who are you?" – "Engineer". – "I need an educated person, you will go to meetings with me…"

At meetings, a fighter with a laptop looked quite natural. So Viktor Khomenko became Photon – an irreplaceable person in the mouth.

The meaning of death

Foton recalls the most emotionally charged period of service: "2022 and 2023 were spent on adrenaline. Then there were maximum losses among my friends and comrades. Then we all believed that the highest meaning was sacrifice. The main thing is to work here and now to the maximum. And building Ukraine is the task of future generations."

With this thought in mind, Foton was setting up the work of the first UAV crews under daily artillery fire near the village of Bazaliivka, Kharkiv region. Those days can be called the infantry period of his life. "It was then that we became soldiers under fire: we learned to control the situation, to develop maximum rationality in critical circumstances."

In conditions when the ground trembles under you, every person experiences a multitude of emotional states that they are not always able to realize and express. Photon is capable: "In extreme situations, you seem to close yourself off from the world around you. Even the death of a comrade is perceived as an inseparable element of war. What to do? Despite everything, move on... You postpone many reflections on one occasion or another for later. You even postpone mourning for your comrades until "after the Victory". But unrecognized, unspoken feelings will sooner or later manifest themselves and can negatively affect the performance of combat missions."

Therefore, from some point on, Photon began to "internally talk" about his feelings. He set himself the goal of not losing his humanity and realizing and accepting the possibility of his own death. "I wanted possible death to be my own internal choice. Since then, I have constantly remembered that it is nearby, and I treat it calmly. This realization can fill me with life..."

– So, the awareness of the proximity of death fills you with life? It sounds beautiful, but it's not entirely obvious...

– Exactly: the proximity of death fills a person with a sense of the value of life, – Photon takes a few seconds to choose an illustration with his words: – Look, a KAB is flying a few dozen meters away from you. You understand that death has passed by again, life goes on. At such moments, the words from Goethe's "Faust" come to mind about the fact that a moment is beautiful: "Stop, a moment! You are beautiful...". Yes, a moment is beautiful and... life is beautiful. It takes on new colors. Even the taste of coffee is perceived differently. You understand that you should not postpone some desires that can be realized... You must live on...

Photon looks as if trying to understand whether the interlocutor has absorbed the information, and continues:

– Back then, in 2022 and 23, we believed that the highest meaning was sacrifice. But now I understand that we were a little idealistic. No future generations will realize our specific dreams: to create a family, build a house, build a country... Yes, we must remember the possibility of death and accept it, but at the same time we must remember that among our tasks is still the task of survival. First of all, this applies to commanders, on whose decisions the lives of soldiers depend.

Technological leap

During the three years of war, not only did Foton's worldview change. The world, the country, the Armed Forces of Ukraine changed... The unit that Foton joined also changed. Viktor Khomenko's ideas about good and evil remained unchanged.

The unit's first technological leap occurred in the summer of 2022, when, with the help of "maviks", scouts from the fourth company of the 128th battalion of the 112th brigade of the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces began to adjust the work of the artillery of the 92nd brigade. Company commander Yuriy Fedorenko, call sign Achilles (who, by the way, was born on the same day as Foton – April 26), scaled up the success: the rifle company of the Ukrainian Air Defense Forces first turned into a company of strike unmanned aerial systems (RUBpAK) "Achilles" of the 92nd brigade, then into a battalion and, finally, into a regiment. What was Foton doing all this time?

In short: Photon became one of those thanks to whom the technological progress of the unit became possible. This development began in the spring of 2022. The first engineering solutions were quite simple: install "starlinks" in the field, provide them with power, use remote antennas outside the dugouts, etc.

Deputy regiment commander Taras Shandura (call sign Ajax) recalls May 2022: "Foton and I had a task – to establish artillery communication with our first corrective calculation, that is, to install a "starlink" in the field. There were not enough generators then, instead of them we were given two car batteries. We drag them on ourselves for two kilometers... We try to start the "starlink" – but it does not work, because there is no normal power supply... We returned in the evening angry, tired. Suddenly, Foton said the magic word "inverter" (a direct current to alternating current converter. – Ed. note). It turned out that it needed to be replaced. With the new inverter, everything worked!"

In civilian life, Ajax is an aircraft designer. In the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine from the first day of the Great War. It was Ajax who became the commander of the first "Mavik" calculation, and later – the commander of the first FPV calculation. He recalls the spring and summer of 2022 with a smile: "Now everyone has EcoFlow and other portable power sources, and then we had to fumble for simple solutions, and quite often we were the first to succeed. That day, when Foton and I replaced the inverter in the field, I realized that we had an electrical engineer."

Today's role of Foton in the Ajax division is described by the phrase "technical director": "An extremely active person, like a nuclear reactor. He develops many projects at the same time. He tracks technological innovations, understands how they can be quickly applied. By nature, he is a startuper with a somewhat adventurous character: he is able to believe in what I do not always believe in. I am more skeptical. But perhaps our different approaches with Foton provide synergy."

Thanks to Photon, the unit has a modern broadcast system. This is when the command post screens show a complete picture of the UAV calculations. Photon was one of the first to believe in a night bomber with the code name "Baba Yaga" (in fact, these are several models of UAVs), and one of the first to try to develop a method for intercepting video from enemy FPVs.

Today, Foton has an R&D department, which employs a team of engineers. Their task is to find effective solutions for UAV operation in an aggressive electronic environment. During each large-scale operation, Foton and his team create an infrastructure for interaction between radio engineering, electronic reconnaissance, electronic warfare, strike and reconnaissance drones.

Game of Preemption

Listening to Foton, you involuntarily wait for the moment when his personal impressions will reach global conclusions. This is, in fact, what happens:

– Before the war, I had not traveled so long in eastern Ukraine. And here, suddenly, it became interesting to discover small settlements for myself, to think about the origin of certain geographical names... There is living history all around. This is the territory of great wars and a constant feeling of death. In Ukraine, everything is permeated with this feeling. What does this mean?

The answer to the question is given by Photon himself:

– The earth on which we were lucky enough to be born is imbued with special meanings. Each encounter with the devil or, if you like, with death, can give a new chance, a new meaning to a specific person or to humanity globally. In Christianity, as you know, after the crucifixion comes the resurrection.

– That's quite poetic. And speaking specifically about this war, what global meaning or opportunity does it provide?

Photon sighs, as if to say, "It's that simple." But then he chews:

– History is being made on our land, and the meaning of our activity today is not about something "personally ours", but about humanity. Just as World War II ended with the invention of nuclear weapons, so this war will give something to humanity... Conventional war will become impossible.

– In some miraculous way? Will the sense of irrational evil so strike people that they recoil from large-scale violence?

– Not exactly. Look around. The devil is here now.

– Let's assume.

– We feel it. After such an experience, something incredible should happen, as I said, some kind of miracle. This "something" is already appearing before our eyes. We are constantly dealing with miracles. For example, the very fact that we stood for 2024, held the main part of the front lines, is a miracle. To be more specific: it is a technological miracle, since it happened thanks to the development of unmanned systems. New developments are being systematized...

– Some claim that both we and the enemy are fighting with "shit and sticks". They say that we are holding on not thanks to the "Leopards", "Haymars" or "Abrams" , but thanks to cheap solutions that can be quickly scaled. The same FPV in this context are just cheap solutions...

– This is what those in the "front-line cabal" usually say. The commanders in this cabal are focused on a specific situation. Their life is an endless "Groundhog Day." In reality, this or that "cheap technological solution" is a tiny fragment in the holistic picture of technological change.

– But let's get back to the miracle. What does it consist of?

– So. The high intensity of hostilities is accelerating our technological development. The prerequisites for a fundamentally new infrastructure of the defense line are being created...

– Will we ever have an "Iron Dome" like in Israel?

– Better.

– Is this even possible?

Photon's voice becomes unexpectedly light:

– Yes! The front will be so saturated with technology that in the zone of 15-20 km on both sides of the demarcation line it will become impossible for people and equipment to be present. Dugouts, trenches... They will not exist, they will lose their meaning. The usual methods of waging war, as I have already said, will also become impossible. We will find a way to make war impossible. This is a miracle. This is our gift to humanity. That is how it will be.

The last phrase – "so it shall be" – sounds like a prayerful Amen in Photon's mouth.

During our last meeting, I handed him a piece of paper with a list of his successful developments. He glanced at the handwritten lines, looked up, and said, a little irritated, "You're out of your mind. Don't mention this anywhere."

In a few seconds, the Photon disappeared – he left for another meeting. He is a particle of radiation that exists in constant motion and only in it. We must hurry – once the devil already played for the lead...