Serhiy Viktorovych Kokurin (; 1 January 1978 – 18 March 2014) was a Ukrainian soldier who was shot dead during an assault on a Ukrainian military base in

Simferopol Simferopol ( ), also known as Aqmescit, is the second-largest city on the Crimea, Crimean Peninsula. The city, along with the rest of Crimea, is internationally recognised as part of Ukraine, but controlled by Russia. It is considered the cap ...

. He was the first soldier killed during the Russo-Ukrainian War.

Biography

Serhiy Kokurin was born on 1 January 1978 in

Crimean Oblast * oblast An oblast ( or ) is a type of administrative division in Bulgaria and several post-Soviet states, including Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. Historically, it was used in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. The term ''oblast'' is often tr ...

(

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

). On 28 December 1997 he pledged his allegiance to the Ukrainian people. During his military service Kokurin went from private to warrant officer and was the chief of his unit's logistics service. On 18 March, Kokurin was killed on watch duty during the Russian assault on the 13th Photogrammetric Center of the Central Military Topographic and Navigation Main Directorate of Operations of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Russian press started to distribute fake that Kokurin was killed by a sniper. Ukrainian witnesses disprove this version: attackers broke into Ukrainian military establishment, opened chaotic fire with automatic weapons, and fired at the observation tower. Death report says "Kokurin was killed by two 5.45 mm bullets fired from the bottom up", proving that one of the fighters from Girkin's unit killed Kokurin. Kokurin was survived by his wife, son, and unborn child, all of whom relocated to

Odesa Odesa, also spelled Odessa, is the third most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city and List of hromadas of Ukraine, municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kokurin, Serhiy 1978 births 2014 deaths People from Simferopol Deaths by firearm in Ukraine Ukrainian people of Russian descent People of the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation Ukrainian military personnel killed in the Russo-Ukrainian War People murdered in Ukraine