Marko Melnyk, with the call sign “Viry” (‘’Whirlpool’’), will develop the “Intellectual Arsenal” project.
The veteran became one of the winners of the first #VARTO veteran business funding competition.
Marko was born and raised in the city of Kryvyi Rih. He participated in the Revolution of Dignity, then joined the “Right Sector” organisation and became a member of the revolutionary self-defence forces. He was wounded during clashes with “Berkut” police forces.
In 2014, Marko went to the front as a volunteer. He was a soldier of the reconnaissance unit of the “Azov” battalion. There he became the founder and editor-in-chief of the first front-line magazine in Ukraine.
Within a year, he became the driver of the medical service and the commander of a group of military journalists of the ideological service of the “Azov” regiment. Participant of the Shyrokyn operation. In 2016, he founded one of the first veteran publishing houses in Ukraine.
“The “Intellectual Arsenal” project will publish and distribute five editions of books that will provide Ukrainians, and in particular the military, who are currently defending Ukraine, with proper informational and intellectual materials,” says Marko.
According to the defender, such books are necessary to preserve the high morale of soldiers and civilians, and to orient society as a whole on its way to the victory and restoration of Ukraine after the defeat of the Russian occupiers.
“It is planned to publish books on the following topics: the history of Ukraine’s struggle for independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s during the collapse of the USSR; the world’s biggest successful military operations against terrorism; ideological foundations and the national idea of Ukraine; military memoirs of volunteers (veterans) who defended Ukraine since 2014; a poetic collection of veterans of the war with Russian Federation,” the veteran shares.
In 2022, Marko Melnyk became the vice president of the historical club “Kholodny Yar”. Photos are taken from the personal archive of Mark Melnyk
