Scholarship named after volunteer surgeon established in Odesa region

The Pirogov First Volunteer Mobile Hospital (PFVMH) and Odesa National Medical University have announced the creation of a scholarship in honor of Oleksandr Polyakin.

The award is intended to support the best interns who have chosen to become surgeons, Rayon.Rozdilna reports, citing a joint initiative of the hospital, university and the doctor's family.

The scholarship recipients will receive their first payments in April 2026. They are young doctors Anastasia Vikol and Vadym Prosvitliuk. The ceremonial presentation of personalized certificates is scheduled for May 26. Oleksandr Polyakin, a 1990 graduate of Odesa Medical Institute, has been working as a surgeon in his native Rozdilne for more than 20 years, first at the railway hospital and later at the Rozdilne Multidisciplinary Hospital. When the full-scale invasion began, he became one of the hospital's most active volunteers, completing 18 rotations in the hottest spots of the frontline.

On July 21, 2025, in the village of Orly in the Dnipro region, where his unit came under enemy fire, the doctor sustained severe shrapnel wounds. His colleagues from the Feofaniya Institute in Kyiv fought for his life for almost three months, but he died on October 17, 2025. In February 2026, a memorial plaque was unveiled on the facade of the Rozdilnia Multidisciplinary Hospital, where he worked for many years.

Earlier, Ukrainian film director, winner of the 2016 Odesa International Film Festival Igor Malakhov was declared dead. The director was identified by DNA, and before that he had been missing since December 29, 2023. He died in the fighting near Avdiivka near the village of Stepove. Igor Malakhov is a Ukrainian film director, documentary filmmaker, screenwriter and historian. He would have turned 60 on May 26. He was born and raised in Kyiv. He studied at the Maxim Gorky Kyiv State Pedagogical Institute (now the Mykhailo Drahomanov National Pedagogical University) and the Gerasimov All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography.

Кирило Бойко