Silvashko went to the front in the Cherkassy Region of Ukraine, where he was born in the village of Kovunovka. He joined the infantry on the 1st Ukrainian front and was wounded three times, and once suffered concussion. After Torgau, Silvashko fought in Dresden and Prague. When he returned to his Ukraine, he found it starving dreadfully. Because of that, he travelled to Belarus with the aim of exchanging some of his possessions for food, and stayed there. He worked as a teacher.
