Maksym A. Sikalenko

The 43-year-old brigade commander, Maxim Sikalenko, was killed in action on March 30, 2022, near the village of Kanatove in Kirovograd region. Together with his comrade, he was carrying out a combat task of mining a section of the road. The Su-24M aircraft, on board which they were, was shot down by Russian invaders. Maxim was born in the city of Yevpatoria in Crimea. He graduated from the Kharkiv Institute of Air Force Pilots, where he received a specialization in "Flight operation and combat use of aircraft" and obtained the rank of a tactical level military management officer. He then stu under the specialty "Aircraft and helicopters" at the National Aerospace University named after Nikolai Zhukovsky. From 1999 to 2004, he served in Ivano-Frankivsk region. Since 2004, he served in the 7th Tactical Aviation Brigade named after Petro Franko of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He rose from senior pilot to brigade commander. The officer was appointed to his last position in February 2022. Since the beginning of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014, Maxim had been participating in the ATO/OOS in Donbas. He carried out combat sorties. He was repeatedly honored with state awards. Since the first days of the full-scale war, Colonel Sikalenko continued to fulfill his military duty to defend Ukraine. Five days before his death, the officer was awarded the Medal "For Military Service to Ukraine". And posthumously - the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky III degree. "He was a strict and fair leader. Despite this, many people loved him. I still can't let him go. It feels like he's about to come back, open the door, and the kids will immediately run to him. It was always like that. He was too good to die. It hurts and I don't understand why it happened. He is always in my dreams, walking in his green uniform - happy and smiling... And his daughter, at just 13 years old, dreams of a 'time machine' to fly to where her father is alive, to never let him go," Maxim's wife told journalists. Maxim is survived by his wife Lydia, with whom they lived together for 19 years, daughter Yulia, and son Matvey.