1990–2024
Maksym Kryvtsov
Poet, photographer, SSO soldier
A poet and photographer, call sign “Dali”, he first volunteered for the front back in 2014 and between the wars helped other veterans. PEN Ukraine named his collection Poems from the Embrasure one of the best books of 2023. Killed in 2024; Hero of Ukraine (posthumously).
Key accomplishments
- The collection Poems from the Embrasure (Nash Format, 2023), one of the best Ukrainian books of 2023 according to PEN Ukraine
- A volunteer from 2014: the 5th battalion of the Right Sector Volunteer Corps, then the National Guard’s Rapid Reaction Brigade
- After demobilization he worked for veterans, at the YARMIZ readaptation center for ATO veterans and at Veteran Hub
- From 2022, a machine gunner in the 3rd Separate Special Operations Regiment of the Armed Forces
- Hero of Ukraine (posthumously, decree No. 608/2025 of 22 August 2025)
A poet with a camera
Maksym Kryvtsov was born in 1990 in Rivne. He graduated from a technical college of technology and design in Rivne, then studied footwear and leather-goods design in Kyiv. He worked as a shop assistant and an assistant at a tailoring studio, and he took photographs. He had written poetry since his teens.
Between the front and the veterans
Kryvtsov took part in the Revolution of Dignity, and in 2014 he went to the front as a volunteer in the 5th battalion of the Right Sector Volunteer Corps, defending Pisky and Avdiivka. Later he passed a tough selection into the National Guard’s Rapid Reaction Brigade. After demobilization he worked for other veterans, at the YARMIZ readaptation center for ATO veterans and as a copywriter at Veteran Hub, and also as a photographer and mentor for the children’s project Strokati Yenoty (Motley Raccoons). On 24 February 2022 he rejoined the army and served as a machine gunner in the 3rd Separate Special Operations Regiment.
Poems from the Embrasure
In December 2023 the publisher Nash Format released his first collection, Poems from the Embrasure (Virshi z biinytsi): free verse illustrated with his own photographs. PEN Ukraine named it one of the best Ukrainian books of the year. He managed to give only one presentation of it: children read his poems at a Strokati Yenoty camp. The band Yurcash performs songs set to his poems.
Maksym Kryvtsov was killed in battle in Kharkiv Oblast on 7 January 2024. He was 33.
How he is remembered
He was buried in Rivne, on the Alley of Heroes. Posthumously Kryvtsov received the Ulas Samchuk literary prize and the Order of Merit, 3rd class, and in 2025 he was made a Hero of Ukraine. A reserve football pitch of the Veres club in Rivne bears his name.
