Oleksandr I. Zvinnyk

A resident of the Dnipro district of the capital, soldier Oleksandr Ivanovych Zvinnyk, is from a generation that journalists like to call "Peers of Independence." In fact, he was only one day younger than the Ukrainian state—born on August 25, 1991. The photos posted on his social media pages depict the life of an ordinary young person—shots taken as memories during his compulsory service in a unit of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine—in the barracks, with friends, near planes and special equipment for their maintenance; then—after the long-awaited demobilization—meetings with friends, picnics with shashlik in nature, his favorite "Ford" by the garage, optimism in his smile in every shot… Suddenly, from the spring of 2014, he poses again in uniform and with a weapon in hand, with new comrades—fighters of the mobilization battalion of the capital's National Guard unit… This unit, without exaggeration, is one of the best military collectives. It deserves no less praise than the well-publicized volunteer formations with "brand" names in the media. After all, the mobilized residents of the capital and Kyiv region demonstrated extraordinary diligence and discipline, a sincere desire to quickly regain military skills. In fact, most of them, torn from the flow of ordinary, comfortable, and safe life by mobilization, were and are volunteers who donned their epaulettes again not out of coercion or fear, but out of patriotic considerations. One of these men was Oleksandr Zvinnyk, a reserve airport worker from Boryspil, who, even by external signs, including how he held himself in front of the camera and wore his uniform during those days, and how carefully he compiled his small personal virtual photo and video archive on social networks, exudes restrained, without any unhealthy fanaticism, PRIDE in participating in the defense of his homeland precisely in these, not the best times for it, for being part of the powerful security structure—the National Guard of Ukraine. This is especially evident in the last photo, where Oleksandr poses with two friends against the backdrop of a column of domestically produced military trucks lined up on Khreshchatyk on the morning of August 24, 2014, before the start of the military parade on the occasion of Ukraine's Independence Day. In that solemn march, at the wheel of one of the new KrAZ trucks was soldier Oleksandr Zvinnyk, whose professional skills were recognized by the command as worthy of participation in the parade. At that time, a day before his own 23rd birthday, he had no idea that the undeclared war in the East had already entered a phase of overt Russian aggression against his homeland and that military equipment would soon leave the parade column for the front. On September 5, he, the only son in the family, along with four comrades, would meet death in a fierce battle that erupted around 16:30 in the area of the town of Telmanove in the Donetsk region, when a column of vehicles and armored vehicles of the National Guard of Ukraine, moving to a designated area for carrying out a service-combat task, suddenly came under heavy fire from both sides. The enemy managed to knock out the main armored personnel carrier and destroy several KrAZ trucks; 5 soldiers were killed, 12 were wounded, but despite the fact that most of them were very young conscripts, the guardsmen engaged in battle, returning fire, bravely attacked, and ultimately broke free from the fire "bag"…