Exclusive | Ukraine war vets with amputations flee to NYCs Staten Island for refuge and care: Its a war of exhaustion

Two injured Ukrainian war vets from different backgrounds are now living a new reality together in a house on Staten Island as they get fitted for prosthetic legs and hope their sacrifice is not in vain.Vitaliy Fomenko, 37, toiled as a construction worker in Germany while married dad Hennadiy Degtyar, 47, was a financial planner before they took up arms to fight back against Russia’s craven invasion of their homeland.When the pair both lost parts of a leg in battle, they ended up facing the same reality — and a temporary new life in New York City as they received crucial prosthetics thanks to a non-profit far from the death and destruction in their war-torn country.Now, with the three-year anniversary of the horrific war Monday, the men are wondering if their sacrifice will ultimately be worth it.“Of course everyone is tired, both soldiers and civilians, but we are doing everything we can, soldiers and civilians, beyond our possibilities,” Degtyar, the dad of a teenage boy, recently told The Post through a translator.“It’s a war of exhaustion.”Fomenko said Ukraine needs to be victorious.“If [the Russians] force us to give our territories, all of this trauma, all of this sacrifice, were in vain for what we are fighting,” he said.The men said they had no idea what was ahead of them when Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his troops into the neighboring country Feb., 24, 2021.Degtyar and his family, who live in Chernihiv, were startled out of sleep when they heard an explosion at the start of the incursion.

The father said he and his neighbors immediately knew they had to protect their city by starting their own defense units outside the Ukrainian army.Months later, he joined the country’s border service.Fomenko happened to be back in Ukraine around February 2021 to celebrate the baptism of children in his extended family, he said.He had the option at the war’s outbreak to stay away from the fighting because of his mother’s health, but h...