Vitalii V. Hardt (VV)

Vitaliy Vitaliyovych Gardt was born on May 15, 1995, in the village of Pleteny Tashlyk, Novoukrainka District, Kirovohrad Oblast. In 2013, immediately after graduating from school, he was called up for compulsory military service in the internal troops of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine. Later, Vitaliy decided to dedicate his life to a military profession — in December of the same year, he signed a contract. With the onset of hostilities in the East of the country in 2014, he volunteered to go as part of a tactical group to the ATO zone. In August 2015, he transferred to the special forces company of military unit 2260 of the National Guard of Ukraine in Kyiv. From 2015 to 2018, together with his unit, he regularly went on rotations, carrying out combat missions in Eastern Ukraine. In addition to his service, Vitaliy Gardt practiced kickboxing but always found free time to meet with his future wife. According to his wife Anna, Vitaliy was always someone she could rely on, as he was a caring husband to her and a devoted father to their daughter. In 2018, thanks to his excellent training, Vitaliy Gardt was selected for the separate special forces unit "Omega" of the National Guard of Ukraine, taking the position of combat group officer, and the following year, after receiving the appropriate qualification, he became a tactical medic. During his service, he carried out counter-diversions and counter-sniper measures in the area of the Joint Forces Operation in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions. Since February 24, 2022, Lieutenant Vitaliy Gardt participated in battles for the liberation of Kyiv region and later fought in the Izyum direction. According to his wife’s recollections, they had not seen each other for more than 100 days since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, as Vitaliy was constantly performing service-combat tasks. Their meeting only occurred when he was hospitalized with a severe concussion he received in early summer 2022 in the industrial zone of the Severodonetsk automobile repair plant. Vitaliy Gardt wanted to publish a book about his experiences in the war, but he only managed to write 80 pages about one day, June 2, 2022, regarding the battles for Severodonetsk. In these memoirs, the officer described the truth about the war, enemy attacks, and more than a dozen wounded comrades. Later, Vitaliy Gardt found himself in the Avdiivka direction in Donetsk Oblast, where in August and September 2022 alone, he provided assistance to at least 50 wounded servicemen. On the morning of March 22, 2023, as part of a reconnaissance group and using the Javelin anti-tank missile system in the Avdiivka area, Vitaliy Vitaliyovych coordinated the work of a kamikaze drone operator, who subsequently hit enemy equipment. When the officer reached a neighboring position to assist a wounded comrade, he came under enemy artillery and tank fire, resulting in his death. Personal belongings of Lieutenant Vitaliy Gardt, including handwritten notes titled "24 Hours of War," became part of the archival collection of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II. On June 7, 2023, a memorial event for Lieutenant Vitaliy Gardt took place in the exhibition space "Ukraine — Crucifixion" at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in World War II. By order of the Commander of the National Guard of Ukraine, Vitaliy Gardt was posthumously enrolled in the lists of the military unit.