Lieutenant ColonelKnown by the callsign “Yankee”, in June 2014, he joined the ranks of the Azov Battalion, which is where he started his military career. In August 2014, he performed tasks during the battles for Maryinka and Ilovaisk. In the fall of the same year, he participated in the clearing of the village of Pavlopil near Mariupol. In 2015, he was part of the operation in Shyrokyne.
At some point, he left the ranks of the unit, and became a private entrepreneur, engaged in security activities and headed his own security company. All of his former employees now of which, serve with him. On February 26, 2022, veterans of the Azov Battalion living in Volyn Oblast, including new, highly motivated volunteers and former servicemen, including Krykun, banded together to form the Lyubart Volunteer Unit, and its fighters began to perform combat missions. Under his command, tasks were carried out to cover the state border of Ukraine with Belarus.
In February 2024, he pushed the unit to return to the ranks of the Azov Brigade, where he commanded the 5th Special Purpose Battalion “Lyubart”, coordinating offensive operations in the floodplains of the Siverskyi Donets River. Since April 2025, he has been commanding the newly expanded Lyubart Brigade, and coordinating combat actions of the unit in Torets around August 2024 to October 2025, and now commanding actions in the Pokrovsk direction.
