Volunteer, activist and soldier from Avdiivka, Oleksii Savkevych (Maestro), died at front. PHOTOS
On 10 March 2025, Oleksii Savkevych, a volunteer, activist and serviceman from Avdiivka with the call sign Maestro, died while defending Ukraine.
This was announced by the head of the Avdiivka city administration Vitalii Barabash, Censor.NET reports.
Savkevych was a volunteer, helping to evacuate people and animals from the now-occupied Avdiivka and bringing humanitarian aid there.
"A brave, noble, kind and strong-minded man. Avdiivka breathed his dreams, the power of his ideas. (...) His guitar will no longer play, but his work and memory will live forever," Barabash wrote about him.
In September 2024, he joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine and served in the 157th Separate Mechanised Brigade. He received the call sign Maestro.
Oleksandr Savkevych was the subject of a report by hromadske in 2023. In the footage, he was playing the Ukrainian anthem on the piano in the damaged building of the Avdiivka music school.
The volunteer and warrior was a co-founder of the NGOs Power of Ideas and Musical Guard, and co-organiser of the Avdiivka FM art festival.
"He had a public organisation called 'Power of People', and everything that happened in Avdiivka before the full-scale invasion, 90% of all festivals and cultural events, were the ideas of Oleksiy Savkevych. He was a very bright man, very bright. This is a great loss for the city," said Barabash.
My beloved husband, Oleksii Savkevych, is no longer with us. I can’t bear to write anything right now. I am grateful to everyone for your condolences, support, and help. I know you will all remember him. This damn war is taking our dearest ones away from us. My whole world left with him," wrote Svitlana Savkevych, the wife of the fallen soldier.
"Since the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he never left his homeland. As a volunteer, he used his own car to evacuate people and deliver food to the most remote streets of Avdiivka... A selfless, courageous dreamer, a constructive and creative soul, an athlete who ran 10 to 20 kilometers a day and swam in icy waters. He was fluent in English—a physically and intellectually gifted person. He could have chosen any career, working safely in an office in a peaceful region of Ukraine, but he didn’t. Instead, he joined the Armed Forces. His call sign was 'Maestro,'" says journalist Vira Khomenko.
The man is survived by his wife and two children.
