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(CNN) --
As MMA fighter Yaroslav Amosov walks the streets surrounding his hometown of Irpin, located about 20 kilometers west of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, there are fleeting moments when it seems like any other day in May. .
The sky is clear and calm, and you can hear the birds singing in the trees.
Amosov describes the afternoon as "calm".
But for many Ukrainians, those moments have been rare since Russia began its invasion on February 24, and every few steps, Amosov recalls the destruction that Vladimir Putin's war has brought to his homeland.
Yaroslav Amosov, resting his head in his hands, with the rest of his fellow Ukrainians as they prepare to engage Russian forces in Irpin, Ukraine.
Already in April, local authorities said that around 50% of Irpin's critical infrastructure had been destroyed.
"It's hard to look at your city that was once full of happiness, of life," says Amosov, the current world MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) champion, in an exclusive interview from Ukraine to CNN Sport.
"Here it was always very nice, people were happy, they were happy with their lives and they enjoyed it."
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"Then just looking at the city now, it's on fire, it's being destroyed and it's horrible to look at. You couldn't drive around the city because the roads were covered with trees, in places, there were parts of houses. Destruction".
A close view of the destruction of Irpin by the war 2:26
The Ukrainian is one of the best pound-for-pound fighters of his generation and, with a record of 26-0, currently holds the longest active streak of undefeated fights in MMA.
On May 13, he was scheduled to defend his world welterweight title at the Bellator event at London's Wembley Arena.
Yaroslav Amosov poses for photos at the weigh-in before challenging Dave Rickels in August 2019.
Amosov wanted to break Khabib Nurmagomedov's all-time undefeated record (29-0) and was scheduled to fight Michael Page in a highly anticipated bout before the Russian invasion of Ukraine forced him to pull out.
The 28-year-old fighter had returned from a training camp in Thailand four days before the war began.
Once Russian troops began advancing, Amosov says he took his wife and six-month-old son to safety on the outskirts of Ukraine, before joining the defense of the territory to help civilians in Irpin and its surroundings.
The harsh reality of the war soon became apparent.
"In the early days, it was very hard to watch, to get used to all these events, to see how people run away from their homes," Amosov recalls.
"Not everyone could go out, some people had parents they couldn't leave behind, who were very old and can't move around well.
"People are running... picking up their children, picking up their parents and running, crying, they don't know what to do. People are running with their pets."
"I saw a situation where a soldier was running with a child in his arms. The child's things were covered in blood, but the blood was not his, but his father's. The mother ran after him. In the end I don't know what happened to the child. father of the child, but it is very hard to watch.”
"The kid was probably two or three years old, but he didn't even understand what was going on, I didn't hear him cry, he was probably in unreal shock."
Such was the frenetic nature of those first days of the invasion that Amosov and his friends, who, he says, had never wielded a weapon, received little training in the handling of their weapons, as the fighting had already begun on the ground. town.
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Amosov says that one of the moments that stuck with him most came a few weeks later, after much of the city had been liberated from Russian occupation.
His team had been scouring Irpin to distribute aid and found civilians who had been holed up in cellars with little food and water for almost a month.
Amosov would have defended his title in London this Friday.
He vividly recalls a man who burst into tears after receiving a piece of bread.
"Seeing a person cry just because he has a piece of bread in his hand is very painful and very painful to watch," says Amosov.
Last week, Irpin Mayor Oleksandr Markushin said in a statement that they had recovered the bodies of 290 civilians in the city since the withdrawal of Russian forces.
Markushin said 185 of the dead have been identified, most of whom were men.
The cause of death was "shrapnel and gunshot wounds."
At least five of those who died suffered brain damage and starvation, according to Markushin.
In total, more than eight million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the latest report by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.
"You want to defend this country"
In his darkest moments, Amosov admits that he didn't know if he would make it through the day to make it to his bed each night.
What kept him going, he says, was the "crazy help" and kindness of Ukrainian citizens every day.
Amosov and his group rarely had time to eat until late at night, but they often ran into civilians on the road who had cooked food and prepared hot drinks for those helping the war in Ukraine.
Even those who had almost nothing tried to give something to the soldiers, even if it was just a bar of chocolate.
"I'm proud that there are people like that and that we live in a wonderful country like this," he says.
Although Amosov survived the worst of the fighting at Irpin, not all who fought alongside him were so lucky.
After taking a couple of days to visit his wife and his son, Amosov says he returned to find that one of the young men who had joined the defense of the territory with him had died.
"It's hard to see when a mother buries her son and his girlfriend, who planned a future with him, is also there," he recalls.
"This is our home, our families live here and we want things to go back to the way they were before. We lived a good life, we were happy with everything."
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"When you look at all those people, women, children, when you see those mothers who buried their children, when you see what is happening to your city, when your city is on fire, you want to help and you want to defend this city, this country".
A video of Amosov posted retrieving his Bellator world championship belt at his mother's house in Irpin went viral last month.
In the video, Amosov walks back up a ladder into the house carrying a plastic bag, which he tears open to reveal the belt.
He laughs and says he "was getting the belt for the second time" and later posted a picture of him holding the title aloft while surrounded by a group in military gear.
MMA champion Yaroslav Amosov retrieved his belt from the rubble of his home in Iprin.
"At the time, it was nice because the belt was safe and sound," he says.
"It was nice that my mother hid it well and that he survived, and that day the Russian soldiers were withdrawing from our part of Ukraine, so the atmosphere was better."
"But at the same time, I'm here now and it's calm in our city and everything is fine, but I understand and I know what's going on in other cities and it's hard to laugh with friends, it's hard to be in a good mood because after I've been in these situations when there is shelling all the time and there is shooting.
“This is destroy”
One day during the war, Amosov says that his friends told him about an admirer of his, a young man who used to practice martial arts but was now injured in hospital.
Amosov began texting the boy and soon arranged to visit him.
When he arrived, Amosov was devastated to find that this young admirer, barely 20 years old, had lost both his legs in the fighting.
"I don't understand why people don't believe what's going on here, they think [Russia] has a 'special operation' to save people," he says, referring to the euphemism used by Russian officials to describe the invasion of Ukraine.
"But look what is happening to Mariupol, look at all the other cities that we have in Ukraine that were damaged and many civilians who just wanted to live died. They didn't want any war, they were satisfied with everything."
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"I don't understand how you can fight so cruelly, without any rules. I have the impression that it's almost like something non-human. How can you act like that? How many people were injured? How many died? How many lost their homes? And they talk about saving? This isn't saving, it's destroying."
Once the fighting in Irpin began to die down, Amosov says he immediately went back to his mixed martial arts training.
Logan Storley was the fighter who replaced Amosov for Friday's fight against Page and the Ukrainian says he can't wait to get back in the cage and will be watching to see who wins.
"Now [I'm] getting my form back... I want to go back," he says.
"I want our entire country to return to its former life and I would like to defend my belt."
Amosov admits he doesn't know when that will be, but he does know what his home nation will look like once the war is finally over:
"For all citizens of Ukraine, it will be seen as the best country in the world, the most beautiful and the most loved."
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