1976–2015
Ihor Branovytskyi
Donetsk airport defender "Natrii"
When his captors demanded to know who the machine gunner was, Ihor Branovytskyi stepped forward himself - so his wounded comrades would be spared. Call sign "Natrii", he had just carried them out of a bombed terminal at Donetsk airport. Hero of Ukraine, posthumously. Killed in captivity, 2015.
Key accomplishments
- A participant in the Revolution of Dignity; volunteered in 2014 as a machine gunner in the 90th Separate Airmobile Battalion, 81st Airmobile Brigade
- On his second rotation in January 2015, carried wounded comrades out of the rubble of Donetsk airport's bombed new terminal and gave them first aid
- Taken prisoner after the fighting for the airport; killed in captivity on 21 January 2015
- Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the Golden Star - decree No. 349/2016 of 23 August 2016, posthumous
Who was the machine gunner?
When his captors demanded that the prisoners hand over the machine gunner who had defended Donetsk airport, Ihor Branovytskyi stepped forward and said it was him - so his comrades would not be tortured further. It was the last in a lifetime of taking another person’s place.
Ihor Branovytskyi was born on 25 April 1976 in Pushcha-Vodytsia, now a part of Kyiv. His father had fought in the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and Ihor himself had served with Ukraine’s UN peacekeeping contingent in Angola before the war in the east began. In 2014 he took part in the Revolution of Dignity, then volunteered for the front as a machine gunner in the 90th Separate Airmobile Battalion, 81st Airmobile Brigade. For a call sign, he picked a chemical element: “Natrii” - sodium.
The last days at the airport
In January 2015 Branovytskyi arrived for a second rotation defending Donetsk airport, which Ukrainian troops had held for more than 240 days by then, earning them the nickname “cyborgs”. When the fighters blew up the ceiling of the new terminal, Branovytskyi pulled wounded comrades from the rubble and gave them first aid, applying tourniquets. When some of the defenders were taken prisoner, he was the one who identified himself as the machine gunner, to draw the blow away from the others.
Ihor Branovytskyi was killed in captivity on 21 January 2015. He was 38. His body was identified only in March, and he was buried in Kyiv at Berkovets Cemetery on 3 April 2015.
How he is remembered
On 23 August 2016 Ihor Branovytskyi was made a Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the Golden Star, posthumously. The 90th Battalion where he served now carries the name of another defender of the airport, Ivan Zubkov, who was killed there the same month. A memorial plaque in his honour was unveiled in Kyiv.
