Oleksandr O. Ponomarenko (Krymskyi)

Sapper Oleksandr Ponomarenko (call sign Krym) was killed in action on June 13, 2022, while performing a combat mission near the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. Oleksandr was born in Crimea. There he received his education, lived and worked until 2014. After the occupation of the peninsula by Russian military, the man moved to the town of Hrebenky, Kyiv region. From the first days of the full-scale war, Oleksandr joined the ranks of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. In May, he transferred to a newly created unit, which later became the 47th separate assault brigade. He was a sapper of the engineer-sapper platoon of the military unit A4093. He often invented and tested in practice new means of defeating the enemy thanks to experiments with explosives. "Oleksandr, our friend, is no more. Our brother is no more. He the death that most of us did not deserve - he died in battle, like a warrior. In fact, he lived like a warrior. A very important trait that distinguished him is his loyalty. Absolute, sincere loyalty to his friends without any cunning, hypocritical thought. And we are proud that we deserved his loyalty, deserved to be his friends. He was not afraid of death at all. Oleksandr knew that sooner or later he would leave us, and every time we went on a "job", he worked with such inspiration, as if for the last time. Perhaps, thanks to this, he managed to send such a huge number of Rashists to the other world. For his death, he exacted a payment from the occupier for his life," wrote his comrade Valeriy Markus. The serviceman was buried in the village of Salyvonyky, Kyiv region, near his parents. Oleksandr left behind a daughter.