Yevhenii O. Zelenskyi

Yevheniy was born in the German city of Potsdam into an officer's family. From childhood, the boy dreamed of becoming a military man, so after graduating from one of the capital's schools in the Holosiivskyi district in 2008, he entered the Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi National Army Academy. After graduating from the academy with a degree in "Management of the actions of military intelligence and special forces units," in 2012, Lieutenant Yevheniy Zelensky took the position of commander of a group stationed in Khmelnytskyi of the 8th Separate Special Purpose Regiment of the Operational Command "North" of the Ground Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. When the security and integrity of our state were under threat, Yevheniy, as a true warrior, did not refuse to be deployed to the area of the anti-terrorist operation and actively participated in the battles in Eastern Ukraine starting in the spring of 2014. He was always in the hottest spots with his subordinates. The command entrusted him with the most responsible tasks, and his fighters were always confident in their commander — the best scout of his unit. After all, his father, Colonel of Special Forces Oleksandr Oleksandrovych Zelensky, devoted his entire conscious life to military intelligence and, together with his wife Olena Valeriyivna, raised a true Defender of his country. Comrades-in-arms said that Yevheniy was of average height but powerful like a tank, a true fighter, a hero whom a bullet or shrapnel could not take down. On June 17, 2014, in the city of Shchastia, Luhansk region, Yevheniy Zelensky's group, consisting of 5 fighters, was tasked with freeing another group, the fighters of the Aidar battalion, from captivity. The scouts completed this task. Falling into an ambush, under heavy fire from terrorists, Senior Lieutenant Zelensky covered his fighters until the last moment, giving them the opportunity to regroup. During the retreat in the BTR-80 armored personnel carrier, on the armor of which Yevheniy was covering his guys with fire from his automatic rifle, a grenade from a reactive anti-tank grenade launcher hit. His combat comrades believe that their commander did not allow the armored personnel carrier to be knocked out, taking the shot from the RPG himself. The 23-year-old Yevheniy died from his injuries, never regaining consciousness, on June 24, 2014, in the intensive care unit of the Central Military Clinical Hospital. He was buried in Kyiv at the Sovskyi Cemetery.