APRIL 17, 1986 — MAY 4, 2022
36 YEARS, MILITARY JOURNALIST
«I am in the bottom of a trench. Me and my mates dug it two weeks ago. For three hours, grenade launchers and GRADs have been firing non-stop so you cannot even raise your head. My head aches from explosions. I keep chain-smoking. Suddenly, the silence settles in, as the radio starts to chatter. Three tanks. Four. Zhenia counts the tanks on the radio. Five. I cannot see by myself, but I get the picture immediately. On tank nine, Zhenia stops counting. I hear tank projectiles busting the houses wide open. I grab my rocket launcher and my assault rifle. The shooting comes from everywhere. The village is on fire», Oleksandr Makhov wrote two days before his death.
Oleksandr was killed on May 4, outside Izium, Kharkiv region. Shrapnel from a Russian shell hit his lung. Oleksandr had been in the front lines since the beginning of yet another Putin‘s invasion — again — as part of the 95th Air Assault Brigade.
In 2014, Oleksandr with his own eyes witnessed the «Russian spring» in his hometown. In the summer of that same year, he was forced to move to Kyiv. Since then, he had been frequenting the war zone as a journalist. In 2015-2016, when mobilized, he was in the infantry unit of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He saw the war not from behind the camera this time. Oleksandr took part in military actions outside Horlivka — in Zaitsevo and Maiorsk.
Oleksandr was a Luhansk native. He was born on April 17, 1986. Graduated from the Volodymyr Dahl East Ukrainian National University. He was a military journalist, an Anti-Terrorist Operation participant, serviceman of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. He was a reporter for television channels «Ukraina 24», «Dom». He covered the stories from the war zones, curated a podcast «Voienkor». He had an assignment to Antarctica. Oleksandr was the only journalist aboard the plane that took out Ukrainians from the COVID-ridden Wuhan.
Oleksandr is survived by an underage son and fiancé Anastasia. When they first started dating, he warned her that he talked about war a lot. He was joking that he could even fight in his sleep. He was a passionate romantic, he wrote poems, brought flowers. Once, Anastasia came home from work to find a box on the table, a note attached to the box «So your little feet would not get cold»; a pair of socks inside the box. He used to cook dinner and light up the candles. On April 5, Oleksandr recorded a video with his proposal to Anastasia. Instead of a gold ring, he had a grenade pin. «How can I say «no» to a man with a grenade?» — the bride said. When in the front lines, Oleksandr used to call his beloved every night. The couple dreamt of their own private house and a baby daughter.
Oleksandr was tough, he never complained. He had fought in the war for 70 days. Till his last breath. On May 9, the hero was bid farewell at St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery. He was 36. «I am where I need to be the most right now», said Oleksandr on the first day of war.
