Ukrainian paramedic Iryna Tsybukh was killed at the frontline in the Kharkiv region 

Iryna “Cheka” Tsybukh was killed during a rotation in the Kharkiv region on May 29, 2024, just three days before her 26th birthday.

The Ukrainian volunteer medic battalion Hospitallers reported about Iryna’s death on Facebook.

Iryna Tsybukh joined the Hospitallers back in 2014 to save the lives of wounded Ukrainian defenders amidst Russian military aggression in the East of Ukraine. In 2017, the woman returned to civilian life. Iryna worked as a reform manager at Suspilne Ukraine and implemented educational projects in the villages of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, Iryna returned to the frontline as a senior crew member in the Hospitallers volunteer medic battalion.

“I want children. I want a house. I want to plant tomatoes … but the most important thing right now is to end the war,” she used to say as quoted by the Hospitallers.

Since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Tsybukh published a number of episodes of the podcast “Chuka’s Diary Podcast” together with “Svidomi” media. There, the paramedic talks about her military experience and her personal feelings while going through it. In November 2023, Iryna Tsybukh received the Order of Merit (third class) from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. In March 2024, she became a laureate of the Ukrainian Pravda (UP) award “UP 100. Women’s Power”.

“Iryna saved many soldiers, repeatedly risking her own life during evacuations. In addition, she regularly appeared in the media, provided information to her fellow journalists about the work of paramedics in the combat zone, informed about opportunities for training the volunteers to provide high-quality pre-medical care,” wrote a team of her colleagues from Suspilne Ukraine after reports on her passing.