Andriy Verkhoglyad: Only 23, young officer leads more experienced and older fighters in battle

Name: Andriy Verkhoglyad
Age: 23
Education: Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi National Ground Forces Academy
Profession: Mechanized combat unit leader
Did you know? In late October 2016, Verhoglyad was badly wounded in an anti-tank grenade explosion. Hit by up to 20 grenade fragments, five of them remain in his body even after hospital treatment.

Like so many wars in human history, Russia’s war in the eastern Donbas has a very young face.

Since the start of Russia’s war in April 2014, two months after the Kremlin’s military invasion of the Crimean peninsula, thousands of young men and women have put on uniforms to fight for their country. Many have demonstrated extraordinary bravery and effectiveness in battle, and now even lead war-hardened combat units.

One of them is First Lieutenant Andriy Verkhoglyad, who became a company commander at 21. He comes from a family with strong military traditions, and when war broke out he was studying at the Hetman Petro Sahaidachnyi National Ground Forces Academy in Lviv. Like so many of his fellow cadets, he yearned to be sent to fight in the Donbas.

Verkhoglyad’s time came just two weeks after he graduated from the academy, when he was deployed to the Donbas as a platoon leader with the 72nd Mechanized Brigade, one of Ukraine’s best army units.

“I always believed that genuine military service is done at the frontline, not in the rear,” Verkhoglyad says. “There, we do what we are born for: fighting and leading soldiers, not painting the grass green near our barracks.”

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With his platoon, Verkhoglyad was deployed near Avdiyivka, one of the worst killing zones along the whole Donbas frontline. He was badly wounded in action in October 2016. Nonetheless, Verkhoglyad returned to his unit after a month in a military hospital, without even finishing his medical treatment.

But his hardest days in service came in January 2017, when Verkhoglyad took part in one the most dramatic battles for Avdiyivka, during which the Ukrainian army advanced south of the city, but lost many distinguished soldiers and officers during the operation.

His bravery in that battle won him the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky, 3rd Class, on Feb. 1, 2017. And as recognition for his leadership, the brigade command decided to promote the young officer, placing him in command of a company of over 100 fighters.

The soldiers, many of whom were in their 40s and even 50s, quickly acknowledged his authority. “At war, an officer’s age does not matter much,” Verkhoglyad says. “But his competence and bravery do. If you show your soldiers that you care about them, that you can be a skillful and wise leader, they will respect you. “If you’re not just another example of an ignorant tyrant with stars on an insignia patch, your soldiers will follow you to the very end.”

Today, at 23, Verkhoglyad is still in charge of his company. His 72nd Mechanized Brigade is fighting Russian-led forces on the front near Debaltseve.