The Most Famous

MILITARY PERSONNELS from Ukraine

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This page contains a list of the greatest Ukrainian Military Personnels. The pantheon dataset contains 2,058 Military Personnels, 39 of which were born in Ukraine. This makes Ukraine the birth place of the 11th most number of Military Personnels behind China, and Italy.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Ukrainian Military Personnels of all time. This list of famous Ukrainian Military Personnels is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Ukrainian Military Personnels.

Photo of Bohdan Khmelnytsky

1. Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1595 - 1657)

With an HPI of 74.41, Bohdan Khmelnytsky is the most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 61 different languages on wikipedia.

Bohdan Zynoviy Mykhailovych Khmelnytsky (Ruthenian: Ѕѣнові Богданъ Хмелнiцкiи; modern Ukrainian: Богдан Зиновій Михайлович Хмельницький, Polish: Bohdan Chmielnicki; 1595 – 6 August 1657) was a Ruthenian nobleman and military commander of Zaporozhian Cossacks as Hetman of the Zaporozhian Host, which was then under the suzerainty of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He led an uprising against the Commonwealth and its magnates (1648–1654) that resulted in the creation of an independent Cossack state in Ukraine. In 1654, he concluded the Treaty of Pereiaslav with the Russian Tsar and allied the Cossack Hetmanate with Tsardom of Russia, thus placing central Ukraine under Russian protection. During the uprising the Cossacks he led a massacre of thousands of Poles and Jews during 1648 and 1649, making it one of the most traumatic events in the history of the Jews and antisemitism in Ukraine.

Photo of Lyudmila Pavlichenko

2. Lyudmila Pavlichenko (1916 - 1974)

With an HPI of 70.49, Lyudmila Pavlichenko is the 2nd most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  Her biography has been translated into 51 different languages.

Lyudmila Mikhailovna Pavlichenko (Russian: Людмила Михайловна Павличенко; Ukrainian: Людмила Михайлівна Павличенко, romanized: Lyudmyla Mykhailivna Pavlychenko, née Belova; 12 July [O.S. 29 June] 1916 – 10 October 1974) was a Soviet sniper in the Red Army during World War II. She is credited with killing 309 enemy combatants. She served in the Red Army during the siege of Odesa and the siege of Sevastopol, during the early stages of the fighting on the Eastern Front. Her score of 309 kills likely places her within the top five snipers of all time, but her kills may be significantly more numerous, as a confirmed kill has to be witnessed by a third party. After she was injured in battle by a mortar shell, she was evacuated to Moscow. After she recovered from her injuries, she trained other Red Army snipers and was a public spokeswoman for the Red Army. In 1942, she toured the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. After the war ended in 1945, she was reassigned as a senior researcher for the Soviet Navy. She died of a stroke at the age of 58.

Photo of Nestor Makhno

3. Nestor Makhno (1888 - 1934)

With an HPI of 69.07, Nestor Makhno is the 3rd most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 63 different languages.

Nestor Ivanovych Makhno (Ukrainian: Нестор Івaнович Махно, pronounced [ˈnɛstor iˈʋɑnowɪt͡ʃ mɐxˈnɔ]; 7 November 1888 – 25 July 1934), also known as Bat'ko Makhno (батько Махно, lit. 'Father Makhno'), was a Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary and the commander of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine during the Ukrainian War of Independence. He established the Makhnovshchina (loosely translated as "Makhno movement"), a mass movement by the Ukrainian peasantry to establish anarchist communism in the country between 1918 and 1921. Initially centered around Makhno's home province of Katerynoslav and hometown of Huliaipole, it came to exert a strong influence over large areas of southern Ukraine, specifically in what is now the Zaporizhzhia Oblast of Ukraine. Raised by a peasant family and coming of age amid the fervor around the 1905 Revolution, Makhno participated in a local anarchist group and spent seven years imprisoned for his involvement. With his release during the 1917 Revolution, Makhno became a local revolutionary leader in his hometown and oversaw the expropriation and redistribution of large estates to the peasantry. In the Ukrainian Civil War, Makhno sided with the Soviet Russian Bolsheviks against the Ukrainian nationalists and White movement, but his alliances with the Bolsheviks did not last. He rallied Bolshevik support to lead an insurgency, defeating the Central Powers' occupation forces at the Battle of Dibrivka and establishing the Makhnovshchina. Makhno's troops briefly integrated with the Bolshevik Red Army in the 1919 Soviet invasion of Ukraine, but split over differences on the movement's autonomy. Makhno rebuilt his army from the remains of Nykyfor Hryhoriv's forces in western Ukraine, routed the White Army at the Battle of Perehonivka, and captured most of southern and eastern Ukraine, where they again attempted to establish anarchist communism. Makhno's army fought the Bolshevik re-invasion of Ukraine in 1920 until a White Army offensive forced a short-lived Bolshevik–Makhnovist alliance that drove the Whites out of Crimea and ended the Southern Front of the Russian Civil War. The Bolsheviks immediately turned on Makhno, wounding him and driving him westward in August 1921 to Romanian concentration camps, Poland, and Europe, before he settled in Paris with his wife and daughter. Makhno wrote memoirs and articles for radical newspapers, playing a role in the development of platformism. He became alienated from the French anarchist movement after disputes over synthesis anarchism and personal allegations of antisemitism. His family continued to be persecuted in the decades following his death of tuberculosis at the age of 45. Anarchist groups continue to draw on his name for inspiration.

Photo of Semyon Timoshenko

4. Semyon Timoshenko (1895 - 1970)

With an HPI of 67.80, Semyon Timoshenko is the 4th most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 51 different languages.

Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko (Russian: Семён Константинович Тимошенко; Ukrainian: Семен Костянтинович Тимошенко, romanized: Semen Kostyantynovych Tymoshenko; 18 February [O.S. 6 February] 1895 – 31 March 1970) was a Soviet military commander, Marshal of the Soviet Union, and one of the most prominent Red Army commanders during the Second World War. Born to a Ukrainian family in Bessarabia, Timoshenko was drafted into the Imperial Russian Army and saw action in the First World War as a cavalryman. On the outbreak of the Russian Revolution he joined the Red Army. He served with distinction during the Russian Civil War and the subsequent Polish–Soviet War, which brought him into Vladimir Lenin's and Joseph Stalin's favour. Rapidly rising through the ranks, Timoshenko held several regional commands throughout the 1930s and survived the Great Purge. He led the Ukrainian Front during the Soviet invasion of Poland in 1939. In early 1940, Timoshenko took over the command of the Winter War in Finland from Kliment Voroshilov and turned the tide for the Soviets. In May 1940, he was named a Marshal of the Soviet Union and the People's Commissar for Defence. In the latter capacity, he took steps to modernise the Red Army and prepare for a likely war with Nazi Germany. On the outbreak of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Timoshenko was named chairman of the Stavka. Replaced by Stalin himself a month later, he went on to hold a series of important commands in the following year. In late 1941, he organised a major counter-offensive in Rostov, which brought him international renown. His fortunes had faltered by mid-1942, in particular after the overwhelming Soviet defeat at the Second Battle of Kharkov, and he was relieved from the command of the newly formed Stalingrad Front. He was recalled later that year and appointed commander of the Northwestern Front, and as a Stavka representative he oversaw and coordinated the activities of several fronts in various times during the last phase of the war, including the Leningrad, Volkhov, and North Caucasus Fronts and the Black Sea Fleet, and the 2nd and 3rd Ukrainian fronts. After the war, Timoshenko held commands in several Soviet military districts until his effective retirement in 1960. He died in 1970 at the age of 75.

Photo of Andrey Yeryomenko

5. Andrey Yeryomenko (1892 - 1970)

With an HPI of 65.80, Andrey Yeryomenko is the 5th most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 41 different languages.

Andrey Ivanovich Yeryomenko (Russian: Андре́й Ива́нович Ерёменко; Ukrainian: Андрій Іванович Єрьоменко; October 14 [O.S. October 2] 1892 – November 19, 1970) was a Soviet general during World War II and Marshal of the Soviet Union. During the war, Yeryomenko commanded the Southeastern Front (later renamed the Stalingrad Front) during the Battle of Stalingrad in summer 1942 and planned the successful defense of the city. He later commanded the armies responsible for the occupation of Western Hungary and Eastern Czechoslovakia in 1945.

Photo of Roman Shukhevych

6. Roman Shukhevych (1907 - 1950)

With an HPI of 64.37, Roman Shukhevych is the 6th most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Roman-Taras Yosypovych Shukhevych (Ukrainian: Рома́н-Тарас Йо́сипович Шухе́вич, also known by his pseudonym, Tur and Taras Chuprynka; 30 June 1907 – 5 March 1950) was a Ukrainian nationalist and a military leader of the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), which during the Second World War fought against the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent against the Nazi Germany for Ukrainian independence. He collaborated with the Nazis from February 1941 to December 1942 as commanding officer of the Nachtigall Battalion in early 1941, and as a Hauptmann of the German Schutzmannschaft 201 auxiliary police battalion in late 1941 and 1942. Shukhevych was one of the perpetrators of the Galicia-Volhynia massacres of tens of thousands of Polish civilians. It is unclear to what extent Shuchevych was responsible for the massacres of Poles in Volhynia, but he certainly condoned them after some time, and also directed the massacres of Poles in Eastern Galicia. Historian Per Anders Rudling has accused the Ukrainian diaspora and Ukrainian academics of "ignoring, glossing over, or outright denying" OUN's role in this.

Photo of John Demjanjuk

7. John Demjanjuk (1920 - 2012)

With an HPI of 63.66, John Demjanjuk is the 7th most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

John Demjanjuk (born Ivan Mykolaiovych Demjanjuk; 3 April 1920 – 17 March 2012) was a Trawniki man and Nazi camp guard at Sobibor extermination camp, Majdanek, and Flossenbürg. Demjanjuk became the center of global media attention in the 1980s, when he was tried and convicted in Israel after being misidentified as "Ivan the Terrible", a notoriously cruel watchman at Treblinka extermination camp. In 1993 the verdict was overturned. Shortly before his death, he was tried and convicted in the Federal Republic of Germany as an accessory to the 28,060 murders that occurred during his service at Sobibor. Born in Soviet Ukraine, Demjanjuk survived the Holodomor as a child and was conscripted into the Red Army in 1940. He fought in World War II and was taken prisoner by the Germans in spring 1942. He was recruited by the Germans and trained at Trawniki concentration camp, going on to serve at Sobibor extermination camp and at least two concentration camps. After the war he married a woman he met in a West German displaced persons camp, and emigrated with her and their daughter to the United States. They settled in Seven Hills, Ohio, where he worked in an auto factory and raised three children. Demjanjuk became a US citizen in 1958. In 1977, Demjanjuk was accused of having been a Trawniki man. Based on eyewitness testimony by Holocaust survivors in Israel, he was misidentified as the notorious Ivan the Terrible from Treblinka. Demjanjuk was extradited to Israel in 1986 for trial. In 1988, Demjanjuk was convicted and sentenced to death. He maintained his innocence, claiming that it was a case of mistaken identity. In 1993 the verdict was overturned by the Israeli Supreme Court, based on new evidence that cast reasonable doubt over his identity as Ivan the Terrible. Although the judges agreed that there was sufficient evidence to show that Demjanjuk had served at Sobibor, Israel declined to prosecute. In September 1993 Demjanjuk was allowed to return to Ohio. In 1999, US prosecutors again sought to deport Demjanjuk for having been a concentration camp guard, and his citizenship was revoked in 2002. In 2009, Germany requested his extradition for over 27,900 counts of acting as an accessory to murder: one for each person killed at Sobibor during the time when he was alleged to have served there as a guard. He was deported from the US to Germany in that same year. In 2011, he was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison. According to legal scholar Lawrence Douglas, in spite of serious missteps along the way, the German verdict brought the case "to a worthy and just conclusion." After the conviction, Demjanjuk was released pending appeal. He lived at a German nursing home in Bad Feilnbach, where he died in 2012. Having died before a final judgment on his appeal could be issued, under German law, Demjanjuk remains technically innocent. In 2020, a photograph album by Sobibor guard Johann Niemann was made public; some historians have suggested that a guard who appears in two photos may have been Demjanjuk.

Photo of Ivan Paskevich

8. Ivan Paskevich (1782 - 1856)

With an HPI of 62.89, Ivan Paskevich is the 8th most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Count Ivan Fyodorovich Paskevich-Erevansky, Serene Prince of Warsaw (19 May [O.S. 8 May] 1782 – 1 February [O.S. 20 January] 1856) was a Russian military leader who was the namiestnik of Poland. Paskevich is known for leading Russian forces in Poland during the November Uprising and for a series of leadership roles throughout the early and mid-19th century, such as the Russo-Persian War of 1826–1828, and the beginning phase of the Crimean War. In Russian history, he is remembered as a prominent military commander, rated on a par with Ivan Dibich-Zabalkansky, commander of the Russian armies during the same time. Paskevich started as an officer during the Napoleonic Wars serving in the battles of Austerlitz and Borodino. After the war, he was a leader in the Russo-Persian War. He was made count of Yerevan in 1828. Afterwards, he became the namiestnik of Poland in 1831 after he crushed the Polish rebels in the November Uprising. He then helped crush the Hungarian Revolution of 1848. His last engagement was the Crimean War. Paskevich died in Warsaw in 1856. He attained the rank of field marshal in the Russian army, and later in the Prussian and Austrian armies.

Photo of Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski

9. Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski (1895 - 1966)

With an HPI of 62.38, Tadeusz Bór-Komorowski is the 9th most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Generał Tadeusz Komorowski (1 June 1895 – 24 August 1966), better known by the name Bór-Komorowski (after one of his wartime code-names: Bór – "The Forest") was a Polish military leader. He was appointed commander in chief a day before the capitulation of the Warsaw Uprising and following World War II, 32nd Prime Minister of Poland, 3rd Polish government-in-exile in London.

Photo of Alexander Samsonov

10. Alexander Samsonov (1859 - 1914)

With an HPI of 61.91, Alexander Samsonov is the 10th most famous Ukrainian Military Personnel.  His biography has been translated into 32 different languages.

Aleksandr Vasilyevich Samsonov (Russian: Алекса́ндр Васи́льевич Самсо́нов, tr. Aleksándr Vasíl’evič Samsónov; 14 November [O.S. 2 November] 1859 – 30 August [O.S. 17 August] 1914) was a career officer in the cavalry of the Imperial Russian Army and a general during the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. He was the commander of the Russian Second Army which was surrounded and defeated by the German Eighth Army in the Battle of Tannenberg, one of the early battles of World War I. Ashamed by his loss of the Army, Samsonov committed suicide while retreating from the battlefield.

People

Pantheon has 58 people classified as Ukrainian military personnels born between 1395 and 1996. Of these 58, 7 (12.07%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Ukrainian military personnels include Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Serhiy Shaptala, and Kyrylo Budanov. The most famous deceased Ukrainian military personnels include Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, and Nestor Makhno. As of April 2024, 19 new Ukrainian military personnels have been added to Pantheon including Andriy Melnyk, Sigismund Korybut, and Valerii Zaluzhnyi.

Living Ukrainian Military Personnels

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Deceased Ukrainian Military Personnels

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Newly Added Ukrainian Military Personnels (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Military Personnels were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Military Personnels since 1700.