Volodymyr M. Yurchenko

Volodymyr was born on October 3, 1969, into a family of engineers; his childhood was spent in the village of Kashperivka, located in the Kyiv region. After finishing the 8th grade, he firmly decided to become a military man and enrolled in the Leningrad Suvorov Military School. Later, he also studied at the Poltava Command School of Communications, from where he was assigned to the Amur region. After the collapse of the USSR, Volodymyr, along with his family, returned to Ukraine and immediately began serving in the 95th Separate Airborne Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He initially served as a company commander, then as the deputy battalion commander, and retired from the position of battalion chief of staff. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Volodymyr Mykolayovych Yurchenko, since the beginning of the war in Eastern Ukraine in the summer of 2014, left his construction business and, following the call of his heart, began traveling to the hottest spots of the ATO as a volunteer. He repeatedly delivered food, military equipment, and medicine to Donetsk airport, Debaltseve, and the village of Pisky, evacuated the wounded, and came under fire, artillery shelling, etc. For the first time, he did not celebrate the New Year with his family, and on his daughter's birthday, he left for the ATO zone in the evening. He also did not come home for Christmas, always saying that our soldiers needed help and that we had to win. Volodymyr supported those at war, completely forgetting about himself. He was wounded twice and received treatment in Kharkiv. Even in the hospital bed, Volodymyr constantly kept in touch with his fellow volunteers. Later, he was transferred to the city of Zhytomyr. He felt better. But unexpectedly for everyone, on February 2, 2015, he was taken from life by a heart attack. The heart of the 46-year-old man could not withstand the worries for his comrades who were defending Ukraine's independence.