Kharkiv

KhPI Graduate and “Ukraina” Dance Ensemble Member Ihor Koretskyi Killed in Action

A member of the “Ukraina” folk dance ensemble and a graduate of NTU “KhPI,” platoon commander Senior Lieutenant Ihor Koretskyi, was killed at the front.

Ihor Koretskyi / Photo from Oleksandra Chernikova’s archive

As his friends recall, Ihor didn’t waste time waiting for permission from circumstances. In the spring of 2022, he packed his backpack and headed for the military enlistment office. There were so many volunteers then that his first attempts ended with the words, “Go home.” But he didn’t go home. He went straight to the front.

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Ihor graduated from Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute, completed military training, and joined the fight as an officer. His brigade helped liberate Kherson, held the line near Bakhmut… and fought on many key sectors of the front.

After months of intense fighting, he returned to Kharkiv for a time — and opened a new and unexpected chapter: folk dance. He came to the “Ukraina” ensemble at KhPI — not as a dancer or choreographer, but as a man looking for a way to stay among people and keep a rhythm, even if he’d never heard the words battement tendu or grand plié before.

Ihor Koretskyi and his sister Oleksandra Chernikova (pair on the right) on set of an online project / Photo from Oleksandra Chernikova’s archive

“It was a way for him to support himself,” his sister Oleksandra recalls. “He didn’t know how to dance, but anyone who joins ‘Ukraina’ — we teach them.”

In spring 2024, Ihor signed a new contract. This time — a different brigade, a different direction. A platoon, responsibility, and a frontline invisible from the city rehearsal hall.

On June 26, 2025, he was killed in Sumy region. His mother remains. Two children — a son and a daughter — remain. And so does the university, which will remember him not only for term papers but for the echo of his steps in the practice hall.

No grand words. Just one more line in a long chronicle — proof that sometimes, you can come back to dance. But sometimes, a man must still go where there is no dance.


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