Volodymyr Mukan, a co-organizer of the largest retro festival in Ukraine «Old Car Land», was killed by the Russian occupiers.
He was born in Cherkasy and graduated from the faculty of Philology at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, where he later began teaching. But he managed to realize himself in other areas as well: he worked as a journalist for various Ukrainian publications, a PR specialist for car-related companies, and co-organized the largest retro festival in Ukraine – «Old Car Land». Cars were a great passion in his life, he popularized motorsports and even created one of the first Ukrainian-language YouTube channels about cars. While still a student, he met his future wife Anna. They studied at the same university. Later they got married and became parents of two boys, Andrii and Yaroslav.
After the start of the full-scale Russian invasion, Volodymyr moved his family from the Bucha district near Kyiv to Cherkasy region and decided to defend Ukraine. He didn`t have any military experience, so he was rejected three times at the military registration. Then he found out the name of the officer who registered volunteers, found him on Facebook, and kept writing to him until he accepted him for service. On the same day, Volodymyr filled out all the documents, received the position of a rifleman and the initial rank of soldier. He served in Kharkiv, Luhansk, and Donetsk regions – Popasna, Sloviansk, and Bakhmut. As a journalist, he always tried to create archives of the war: he recorded conversations with the military, shot videos of exercises and combat operations, because he felt that history was being made around him.
In April 2023, he was promoted to officer, but that month, unfortunately, was the last in his life. On April 29, 2023, they stormed positions in Bakhmut, Volodymyr’s group, in which he was the senior officer. Under his leadership, they dug in to the new positions and competently held off the enemy. But Russian artillery mine fell right next to him. On that day Ukrainian forces liberated 200 meters of Ukrainian land from the enemy, for which 35-year-old Volodymyr Mukan gave his most valuable thing – his life… Russian invaders took the life of lovely husband and father of two children…