Vitalii I. Bastryhin

Senior Sergeant Vitaliy Bastryghin (call sign Darling) was killed on April 6, 2024 near the village of Kutuzivka in the Kharkiv region. Enemy KABs hit the stabilization point, as a result of which the warrior received injuries incompatible with life. The defender was forever 50 years old. Vitaliy was born in the village of Galionki (Russia). Later, the family moved to Kharkiv. After finishing the 8th grade of secondary school, Vitaliy enrolled in the Krasnohrad Medical School, where he received the specialty of paramedic. He worked as a paramedic-resuscitator at the ambulance station. After serving in the army, he worked at ambulance station No. 2 in Kharkiv. Later, he decided to change his profession and entered the Faculty of Law of the Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University. After graduation, he worked at the customs office in Kharkiv for 13 years. Later, he went abroad, worked as a medic at a rehabilitation center in Poland, and later at a hospital in the Czech Republic. On April 10, 2019, he enlisted in the contract military service and took the position of a medical instructor in the mortar battery of the 3rd company of the operational purpose on the BTRs of the 6th battalion of the 3rd brigade of the operational purpose named after Colonel Petro Bolbochan of the National Guard of Ukraine. Vitaliy met the full-scale invasion on the frontline. For his service, the warrior had a number of awards. He was awarded the Medal of the President of Ukraine "For Saved Life" and the badge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine "For Courage in Service". "Vitaliy was a very kind and dedicated person. As a son, he was very caring, as a husband and father - loving and responsible. For his colleagues, he was an example and a professional to whom you could turn for advice," said the deceased's cousin Olga Tsypchenko. "The son adored medicine, he was a God-given medic, he saved even hopeless patients, including his grandmother. The brothers-in-arms loved the son very much, which is why they gave him the call sign Darling. During tactical medicine training in Kyiv, Canadian instructors named him the best and awarded him the "Red Heart" badge. At the son's funeral, a brother-in-arms whom he had once saved kept repeating: "He saved me, and he himself was killed..." Inscriptions from brothers-in-arms "To the Best Doc" were written on the funeral wreaths," Larysa Andriivna, the mother, said. The defender was buried on the Alley of Glory in Kharkiv. Vitaliy is survived by his mother, wife, two sons, and relatives.