Armani: Not Giorgio, but Suren!

His PDMSh brethren and sistren call him “Armani,” apparently paying tribute to the Armenian origin of Ukrainian Suren Avakyan. Or maybe it’s due to his innate elegance.

Suren has been with PDMSh since its inception — from the very first mission of the volunteer hospital to the combat zone in December 2014, when the Russo-Ukrainian war was still termed the Anti-Terrorist Operation (ATO). So, it comes as no surprise that it was with him that the PDMSh leader, Gennady Druzenko, began to redeploy the hospital following the full-scale invasion by Russia on February 24, 2022.

“Armani” has visited the hottest spots of this war: Bakhmut, Chasiv Yar, Krasnohorivka. He took part in the liberation of Kharkiv Oblast. His phrase “It’s war, brother” etched its place in the PDMSh treasured collection of aphorisms.

We have already presented this extraordinary person — “driver, paramedic, and philosopher” Suren Avakyan — in the field setting. Today, he is a guest of renowned journalist Dmytro Tuzov in the studio as part of the media project “PDMSh: It’s possible!”