Oleksii I. Koliasa (Kipish)

Aleksiy Kolyasa, a scout, was killed on January 1, 2023, while carrying out a combat mission near the city of Bakhmut in the Donetsk region. The warrior was 28 years old. Aleksiy was born in the village of Petropavlivka in the Dnipropetrovsk region. He grew up in a large family: he had three brothers and a sister. He stuwas killed at the Petropavlivskyi Lyceum No. 1. At the Petropavlivskyi Vocational and Technical School, he mastered the profession of a tractor-combine operator. Soon he met his beloved Maia, with whom they had two children: Matviy and Myroslava. In 2014, Aleksiy joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He defended Mariupol. In the battles near Lebedynske, he was seriously wounded. After rehabilitation, he went to work in a mine as an underground electrician in the water drainage department. With the start of the full-scale invasion, Aleksiy joined the Armed Forces again. He held the position of a scout in the 2nd reconnaissance platoon of the 60th Separate Mechanized Brigade. He underwent training in NATO troops. On the eve of Aleksiy's death, his mother Iryna went to the front to see her son. "He was very sad because many comrades-in-arms had was killed in battle. Aleksiy was in camouflage, only his eyes were visible, by which I recognized him," Iryna Kolyasa recounts. The next combat mission for Aleksiy became fatal. He was evacuating a wounded soldier from the battlefield when the occupiers hit them with a BMP "Tur." Aleksiy's comrades describe him as an excellent fighter who was not afraid and rushed into battle, even under shelling. Aleksiy is survived by two children.