1973–2022
Olha Semydianova
Combat medic of the Aidar battalion
On paper she was a seamstress; in fact she was saving the wounded on the front line. Olha Semydianova, a mother of twelve, six of them adopted, went to the front in 2016 and became a combat medic of the Aidar battalion. She was killed in the first days of the full-scale war.
Key accomplishments
- With her husband, raised twelve children: six of their own and six adopted (a family-type children’s home)
- From 2016 under contract with the Aidar battalion; saved the wounded on the front line and later officially became a combat medic
- The “Honor and Glory” award, of which she was very proud
- Order for Courage, 3rd class (posthumously, Decree No. 745/2022)
A seamstress who saved the wounded
Did you know that on paper Olha Semydianova was a seamstress? In 2016 she and her daughter signed contracts with the Aidar battalion. Her post was a sewing job, but Olha spent all her time on the front line, saving the wounded as a paramedic. Only two years later did instructors come to the battalion; Olha took the courses and officially became a combat medic.
A mother of twelve
Olha was born in 1973 in Zaporizhzhia, a city on the Dnipro in southern Ukraine. She married at 19 and had five children. In 2008 the family moved to a big house near Marhanets in the Dnipropetrovsk region, where their sixth child was born. Then, at a family council, they decided to take in six boys aged 11 and older from an orphanage. So the Semydianovs became a family-type children’s home, and Olha a mother of twelve.
With her company
In 2015 Olha’s husband went to the war as a volunteer, and the next year she went to the front herself. When she said goodbye at home, Olha would repeat: “If we are not there, they will come into our homes.” In early March 2022, when the commander ordered the women pulled back from the front line during a battle, she refused and stayed with her company.
Olha Semydianova was killed on 3 March 2022 on the border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions. She was 48.
How she is remembered
Olha received many awards for her courage and skill, and in October 2022 Senior Soldier Semydianova was posthumously awarded the Order for Courage, 3rd class. Several of her children, like their parents, have also gone to defend Ukraine. Local media in the Nikopol area tell her story among those of their fallen neighbors. “She became an example for us of patriotism and love for our land,” her daughter says.
