Andriy Zholob
A Senior Lieutenant in the Medical Service of the 46th Separate Airmobile Brigade,
doctor, musician, host, and writer.
Author of the short story “By Instinct” in the collection Stories of Warriors, in which he describes one night at Lepetykha station with the cold precision of a doctor and the irony of a punk rocker — a night when life and death touched each other almost tangibly.
Military path
Andrii is 44 years old. He was born and lives in Lviv.
On the front, he served from May 2022 to March 2024. He began as the head of the sorting department of the medical company in the 46th Separate Airmobile Brigade, and after the severe injury of the company commander, he became the commander of the medical company.
Together with his comrades, he participated in the Kherson counteroffensive — Ingulets bridgehead, Murakhivka, Snihurivka, Lymanets. Then came Soledar and Bakhmut, the Zaporizhzhia counteroffensive — Orikhiv, Mala Tokmachka, Robotyne. Next — Kurakhiv medical post during the campaign in the Mariinka direction.
I cooked stew under “Grad” shelling, wearing only swim trunks and body armor, periodically dropping into the dugout and then emerging to make sure it didn’t burn.
Civilian Path
Before the war, Andrii had already lived several lives. He studied at Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, worked as an orthopedic traumatologist, was a DJ at Radio Lux and an event host, and played guitar in the punk-rock band “Beton.”
He also identified himself as a “traveler, father of two daughters, husband of a queen, restless soul, and a non-drugged rock-and-roll devotee.”
After returning from the front, he plays music again, hosts events, and helps veterans as the head of the Center for Services to Combatants at the Lviv City Council.
How he started writing
Since childhood. I caught a word by the tail — and it seems we both (me and the word) liked it.
Favorite Books, Music, and Films
Music: Slayer, Paradise Lost, Pink Floyd, Cannibal Corpse, Incubus, Plach Yeremiyi, Dog Eat Dog, Biohazard, Pyogenesis, Steel Panther.
Books: The Lord of the Rings, the complete works of Max Kidruk, biographies of music bands.
Films: “stupid action movies of the ’90s” and Guillermo del Toro’s horror films.
I am a life‑lover with combat experience.
We will win. Because otherwise — we’re done for.