Oleksandr O. Hryhoriev (Shumakher)

Grigoriev Oleksandr Oleksandrovych (callsign Schumacher) was born on June 28, 1983, on the territory of Lithuania. He was the son of a serviceman who was a radio operator on Il-type aircraft. Initially, the family lived in Lithuania, and later moved to Melitopol, where Oleksandr went to school. He studied at the Ivan Kozhedub Kharkiv National Air Force University. During his studies, he met his future wife. After graduation, he was assigned to the 16th Separate Airborne Brigade, which was based in Brody, Lviv region. He soon got married. In 2010, his son Maksym was born. He participated in peacekeeping missions in Liberia and the Congo, and was an instructor. He was one of the few Ukrainian helicopter pilots who landed in the crater of the Nyiragongo volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Since 2014, in the ATO/JFO zone, he evacuated wounded servicemen and civilians. He was a big fan of Formula 1, which is why he was nicknamed Schumacher. After the full-scale invasion of Russia in Ukraine, as part of the Mi-8 helicopter crew, together with his comrades, he day and night shelled the enemy's columns. He was killed on February 28, 2022, while performing a combat flight mission to repel the armed aggression of Russia. The helicopter near the village of Makariv, Bucha district, Kyiv region, was hit by an enemy missile. Communication with the crew was lost. Only after the liberation of the Kyiv region from the invader, the bodies of the helicopter crew, including Oleksandr Grigoriev, were retrieved. He was buried in Brody, Lviv region.