lit a candle 14h agoI remember reading about the 2019 exchange, 35 for 35, and thinking about the years he'd lost to that Chechnya charge nobody outside Russia believed. Same age as me, born 1964. Heard about his death this morning over coffee and just sat there.
Their story
Mykola Andronovych Karpyuk was a Ukrainian political activist, co-founder and former leader of the UNA-UNSO nationalist movement, a member of the central council of Right Sector, a recognized political prisoner of the Russian Federation, and later a soldier of Ukraine who was killed in combat on September 19, 2026, at…
Mykola Andronovych Karpyuk was a Ukrainian political activist, co-founder and former leader of the UNA-UNSO nationalist movement, a member of the central council of Right Sector, a recognized political prisoner of the Russian Federation, and later a soldier of Ukraine who was killed in combat on September 19, 2026, at the age of 62.
He was born on May 21, 1964, in the village of Velykyi Zhytyn in Rivne Oblast, then part of the Ukrainian SSR. After finishing school he worked as a lathe operator at the Rivne Gazatron plant and completed military service in 1982-1984. In the early 1990s he became chairman of the Rivne cell of the Ukrainian National Assembly. He took part in the Transnistria conflict in 1992 on the Transnistrian side and in the War in Abkhazia in 1993 on the Georgian side. He stood for the Verkhovna Rada on UNA-UNSO tickets in 1998 and 2002, though the party did not enter parliament. After an internal split he was elected chairman of UNA-UNSO at a November 2001 congress. For his role in the "Ukraine without Kuchma" protests of 2000-2001 he was arrested and sentenced to four and a half years in prison, then released in 2004. During Euromaidan he joined Right Sector and became one of its leading figures.
In 2014 Karpyuk was detained on the Russian-Ukrainian border. A Russian court later sentenced him, with Stanislav Klykh, to 22.5 years in prison on charges of fighting in the First Chechen War, charges both men denied and that Amnesty International and Memorial called unfair; Memorial recognized him as a political prisoner. He alleged torture in detention. On September 7, 2019, he returned to Ukraine in a 35-for-35 prisoner exchange and was greeted in Kyiv by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and relatives. After his return he resumed civic and political work. Following Russia's full-scale invasion he served in the Ukrainian military.
Ukrainian civic figures including Serhii Sternenko, Yurii Honcharenko of InfoLight.UA, and Oleksandr Mishchaniuk reported that Karpyuk was killed in combat on September 19, 2026. The location of his death was not disclosed. Suspilne Rivne and Mezha carried confirmation that the former Kremlin political prisoner and UNA-UNSO co-founder from Rivne Oblast had fallen at the front. He is survived by two children, Olena and Taras. Tributes described a man for whom Ukraine was not a slogan but a lifelong choice, who did not chase fame, money or office. His Wikipedia and Wikidata entries record the same birth and death dates.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) Mykola Karpyuk; Wikidata Q25439042; Mezha / Bykvu combat death report (Sep 20, 2026); Suspilne Rivne; OGO.ua. Wikipedia ↗
In their own words
“Mykola was one of those people for whom Ukraine was not words, but part of life itself.”
“A patriot died in battle with the enemy. A person who dedicated his whole life to Ukraine, who never chased fame, money or positions.”
That exchange got so little coverage here. Glad someone remembers it.