Zelenskyy awards Hero of Ukraine title to 128th Separate Mountain Assault Brigade company commander Oleksii Mykhailov, who spent 343 days on front line
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine with the Order of the Gold Star to Captain Oleksii Mykhailov, commander of a company in the 128th Separate Zakarpattia Mountain Assault Brigade. The officer spent 343 days on the front line.
This is stated in a decree published on the president’s website and was also announced by Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Pavlo Palisa, Censor.NET reports.
Details
"This award is for real combat work. Behind him is a hard combat path, the Zaporizhzhia direction, defense of positions, difficult combat episodes, and 343 days of uninterrupted presence on the positions. Under his command, the unit held its sector, repelled enemy assaults, and retained its positions. Well deserved," Palisa said.
The officer’s story
"Thirty-seven-year-old Oleksii had the option to leave the front, but because of a shortage of personnel, he decided to stay. In his battalion, they say this is one of the longest deployments for an AFU officer," the CNN report says.
- After 343 days at the front, Oleksii received a short leave: he celebrated his daughter’s 10th birthday, taught her how to ride a bicycle, and then returned to his unit. In total, his deployment lasted from 1 April 2025 to 8 March 2026.
Oleksii himself explained that his company is understaffed, like all the others, and that about half of the troops are people over the age of 50.
"In an ideal situation, an infantryman should spend a month on combat duty and a month recovering in a frontline village. But under current conditions, this is absolutely unrealistic because of the shortage of personnel," he said.
