Deputy Commander for Armaments - Lieutenant Colonel
Unit: Tank Battalion, 1453rd Motorized Rifle Regiment, 1st Donetsk Army Corps, 8th Guards Combined Arms Army, Southern Military District
Cargo ID: #1219
English Name: Oleg Viktorovich Gorbunov
Russian Name: Горбунов Олег Викторович
Date of Birth: March 1967 (age: 56 years)
Place of Birth: Shadrinsk, Kurgan region, Russia
Place of Death: Sieverne, Avdiivka area, Donetsk Oblast, Ukraine (Tank hit by ATGM,FPV Strike Drone)
Education: Kharkiv Guards Higher Tank Command School (Graduated 1988)
Awards: Order of Courage (ph.), others under Investigation
"..the lieutenant colonel voluntarily returned to military service to carry out assigned tasks on the territory of the DPR, LPR and Ukraine. In December 2022, he left for a combat unit.
December 10, 2023 was his last day. He died near Donetsk in the village of Severnoe (Avdeevskoe direction). He died like a real hero.
Having decided to replace the gunner who had failed during the assault, Oleg Viktorovich Gorbunov, together with the tank crew, continued to fight the enemy. His comrades fought shoulder to shoulder with him - the tank commander, Sergeant Evgeniy Galichanin, the driver mechanic, private Maxim Melnikov. Despite the fact that the rest of the vehicles of the armored group were hit, the tank continued to bravely fight the enemy, hitting all the specified targets with fire, causing significant damage to the enemy.
The fire of all enemy weapons was concentrated on the tank. Having broken through the front line of defense, the vehicle found itself under attack from anti-tank systems and an FPV copter of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Lieutenant Colonel Gorbunov and Sergeant Galichanin died instantly. Miraculously, only one crew member, the driver, private Melnikov, survived. After making sure that his comrades had died, while in a state of shell shock, under continuous enemy fire, he was able to reach his positions.
The enemy fired heavily at the evacuation groups, preventing them from approaching the damaged tank. Repeated attempts to retrieve the bodies of the dead were unsuccessful. The heroically killed soldiers were in the tank until March 7, 2024."
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