Heorhii O. Tarasenko (Zhora)

Georgiy Oleksandrovych Tarasenko was born on December 6, 1996, in Kharkiv. From 2003 to 2014, he studied at Kharkiv Secondary School No. 5. For 8 years, he attended a swimming section at the Children's and Youth Sports School of Olympic Reserve "Spartak." Georgiy Tarasenko won prizes at regional competitions and later trained and participated in street workout competitions. He actively participated in the Revolution of Dignity and opposed the spread of the "Russian Spring" in Kharkiv. With the onset of hostilities in Eastern Ukraine in the spring of 2014, he went to the front and fought in Donetsk region. From 2014 to 2019, he studied at V. Dokuchaev Kharkiv National Agrarian University, earning a master's degree in Agronomy. At the same time, he studied at the military department, where he received the military rank of reserve junior lieutenant. In May 2017, he created and led the volunteer unit "Frykor," and in 2018, he established the same name military-patriotic organization. Prior to this, he was a member of the right-wing radical National Corps. Under his command, fighters carried out 7 combat rotations in Donbas for a total of 22 months, reinforcing the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the Mariupol direction and in the area of Donetsk airport. With the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, Georgiy Tarasenko and the fighters of the volunteer unit "Frykor" stood to defend Kharkiv. On March 12, 2022, under his leadership and direct involvement, a group of individuals planning to blow up military and civilian facilities in Kharkiv was discovered and neutralized. Additionally, together with representatives of territorial defense and units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Georgiy Tarasenko and his fighters directly participated in the elimination of a column of military equipment from the occupying forces attempting to break into Kharkiv from the Lisopark area. He was killed on March 25, 2022, in the Kharkiv region. At that time, the Armed Forces of Ukraine launched a counteroffensive near Kharkiv. Warriors of the 92nd Separate Mechanized Brigade, the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, the special unit "KRAKEN," "Frykor," and the police battalion "Slobozhanshchyna" liberated the villages of Mala Rogan and Vilkhivka in the Izyum direction from Russian troops. On March 30, 2022, Georgiy Tarasenko was buried, according to his will, in Cherkasy region, in the Kholodny Yar area, on a plateau near the Motrohin Monastery, where there used to be an ancient Cossack cemetery. The memorial service for the hero took place in the ancient Church of the Prophet Elijah in the village of Subotiv, the walls of which still remember the requiem for Bohdan Khmelnytsky.