It was a world away from his job as a logistics warehouse manager in Toronto – a position he resigned to be able to travel to Ukraine to take part in the race and help his Kyiv-living mother leave the country.
Now that he has survived a rocket attack and taken his mother to Canada, Sliepukhov is sitting in a restaurant in western Toronto, recounting his time in Ukraine.
“Before February 24, my normal day was like a casual, normal human day. After February 24 … It was the only right decision I had to make,” said Sliepukhov, choosing to compete in Ukraine.
Sliepukhov was among the foreign volunteers who headed to the country to join the international legion of the Ukrainian army after the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
The 36-year-old first flew to Poland in February and then went to Ukraine with a plan to head to the capital, where his mother lived.
“My main goal from the beginning was to go to Kyiv, because I am from Kyiv, but when we arrived in Ukraine the situation changed so fast,” he says.
Sliepukhov, who became a Canadian citizen last year, made his way to an educational base near Lviv, in western Ukraine.  Having served in the Ukrainian army for a year before immigrating to Canada in 2014, he says he became a squad commander and led a group of 38 international volunteers on training missions.
The base was abruptly targeted by Russian missiles last month, he says.
“We were supposed to be in training for about two to three weeks to gather applicants and train them, to assign them to a regiment, but the bombing changed that,” says Sliepukhov.
“The bombing was so random, nobody knows what to do. I was talking to commanders … they were telling me ‘build your own, count them to make sure we all have it, get out … in the woods, we’ll get out.’
The group hid in the woods, says Sliepukhov, where he also helped support squads that lost members in the attack.  None of the members of Sliepukhov’s squad died, but some were injured, he says.
“After the strike, basically our commander, my officers, tell us first of all to measure all the people, to check their mental state,” he recalls.  “Then we offered them, whoever is not ready to stay … will be able to leave (Ukraine). We told them, no one will be judged.”
Many members of his squad decided to leave Ukraine after the Russian attack, he says.
Sliepukhov’s mother, meanwhile, was on her way from Kyiv to Poland, waiting to get a visa that would allow her to go to Canada with her son when he came with her.
“She has a little bit of anxiety when she crosses the border and stays alone in Poland while I was in Ukraine and watching the country fall apart,” he said.
“He is still anxious, but he keeps in touch with everyone he met in Poland who is coming to Canada and with friends who are still in Ukraine.”
The federal government launched a special visitor visa program on March 17 that allows those leaving the war in Ukraine to work and study in Canada for three years, while deciding whether or not to return home.
As of March 30, 60,000 Ukrainians and their families had applied to come to Canada under this program, and another 12,000 have joined the traditional migration stream since January.
Sliepukhov says he started applying for his mother’s visa even before Canada announced its special program for Ukraine and his girlfriend helped him watch it while he was at the military base near Lviv.
Kiran Thind, Sliepukhov’s girlfriend, noted that a government telephone line for Ukraine’s special visa program offers services in English and French, but Sliepukhov’s mother does not speak any languages.
As he adjusts to life in Toronto, Sliepukhov says he would like to continue supporting the Ukrainian war effort by possibly helping train volunteers in Canada who want to head to Ukraine like him.
“To do it right, we have to form groups, interview the (volunteers) to know exactly what their goals are,” he says.  “We train people (in) basic military survival skills, such as field first aid, as a regular response.”
Sliepukhov says he is considering returning to Ukraine to rejoin the international legion.
More than four million Ukrainians have fled the country since the start of the Russian invasion, and millions more have been displaced.
This Canadian Press report was first published on April 10, 2022.


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