c. 1992–2022
Alona Kushnir
Combat medic, Azov regiment
“We are not martyrs, we are fighters!” That was Alona Kushnir’s message to the world from a bunker at Azovstal in spring 2022. A nurse from a village in the Khmelnytskyi region, she became a medical instructor in the Azov regiment and saved wounded soldiers and civilians in besieged Mariupol.
Key accomplishments
- Graduated from the Chemerivtsi Medical College (2011) and worked for five years as a nurse at a hospital in Khmelnytskyi
- From 2017, medical instructor in the Azov regiment of the National Guard, senior sergeant
- In spring 2022, in besieged Mariupol, treated the wounded and delivered food and water to civilians
- On 17 March 2022 recorded an appeal from an Azovstal bunker calling for the siege of Mariupol to be broken
- Order for Courage, 3rd class (March 2022), and 2nd class (posthumously; Decree No. 312/2022)
The first medic in the family
Alona Kushnir was born in 1992 in the village of Moroziv in the Khmelnytskyi region and grew up in a large family. As a girl she was good at drawing and ran track, but the job she chose was one no one in her family had done before: she trained as a nurse. In 2011 Alona graduated from the Chemerivtsi Medical College and then worked for five years at a hospital in Khmelnytskyi.
Azov’s medic
Later Alona moved to Mariupol and signed a military contract herself. From 2017 she served as a medical instructor in Azov, part of the National Guard. She took a course for tactical medicine instructors in the Lviv region, and at the front she saved her comrades under fire.
Mariupol, 2022
When the full-scale invasion began, Senior Sergeant Kushnir stayed in Mariupol. She treated the wounded and brought food and water to civilians sheltering from the shelling. To a friend who begged her to leave, Alona wrote: “Don’t feel sorry for me, I’m a medic, I’m a soldier and I’m Ukrainian.”
On 17 March 2022, from a bunker at the Azovstal steelworks, she recorded a video appeal to the world: she asked for the siege of Mariupol to be broken, for medicine to be brought in, for the wounded to be evacuated and for the dead to be buried with dignity. “We are not martyrs, we are fighters!” she said.
In March Alona was awarded the Order for Courage, 3rd class. Alona Kushnir was killed on 15 April 2022 at Azovstal in Mariupol. She was 30. In May she was posthumously awarded the Order for Courage, 2nd class, and in December 2024 her personal belongings were buried in Khmelnytskyi.
Why it matters today
Alona Kushnir could have left the besieged city, but she stayed where she was needed as a medic. She saved the people holding the defence, and she did not forget the civilians. Her voice from Azovstal helped the world hear what was happening in Mariupol. She asked people to see the defenders not as martyrs but as fighters, and that is how she is remembered.
