1998–2024
Iryna Tsybukh
Journalist and combat medic
She made films about the children of Donbas and went to the front as a paramedic from the age of 17. Iryna “Cheka” Tsybukh, a manager at Suspilne, led a Hospitallers crew in the full-scale war. She was killed in 2024. Hero of Ukraine (posthumously).
Key accomplishments
- From 2015, a military paramedic in Donbas; from 2022, head of the 5th crew of the volunteer Hospitallers battalion
- Manager at Suspilne public broadcasting (from 2017); educational media projects for children in remote villages of Donetsk and Luhansk regions
- The documentary “Distance” about children from remote villages in Donbas (2022)
- Order of Merit, 3rd class (2023) and Order for Courage, 3rd class (posthumously, 2024)
- Hero of Ukraine (posthumously, Decree No. 144/2025)
A premiere the day before the war
On 22 and 23 February 2022, Iryna Tsybukh was showing her documentary “Distance”, about children from remote villages in Donbas, in Pokrovsk and Kramatorsk. The next day the full-scale invasion began.
Iryna was born in 1998 in Lviv, graduated from Lviv Polytechnic and later studied at the Kyiv School of Economics. In 2017 she joined Suspilne, Ukraine’s public broadcaster: she worked with its regional branches, made documentaries and trained other journalists. In remote villages of Donetsk and Luhansk regions she ran educational projects that taught children media literacy.
A journalist with a medical kit
The front was part of her life long before 2022: at seventeen she began traveling to Donbas as a paramedic. After the invasion Iryna, call sign “Cheka”, went back to the volunteer Hospitallers battalion and took charge of its 5th crew, which carried the wounded straight from the front line. She chose to stay a volunteer, because the Hospitallers fill the gaps wherever units are short of medics or vehicles. She spoke often in the media about the work of combat medics and about remembering the fallen. In 2023 she was awarded the Order of Merit, 3rd class.
Iryna Tsybukh was killed on 29 May 2024 during a rotation on the Kharkiv front. She was 25.
How she is remembered
Her farewell was held in St Michael’s Cathedral and on Independence Square in Kyiv, and she was buried at the Field of Mars in Lviv. She was posthumously awarded the Order for Courage, 3rd class, and on 26 February 2025 the title Hero of Ukraine. The Chekafest festival is held in her honor. About remembrance she once said: “Honoring is not for the fallen, but for those who will go on keeping their memory.”
