{"id":83014,"date":"2026-04-21T15:59:56","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:59:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/?post_type=commander&#038;p=83014"},"modified":"2026-04-21T15:59:57","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T13:59:57","slug":"ihor-vovk","status":"publish","type":"commander","link":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/commanders\/ihor-vovk\/","title":{"rendered":"Ihor Vovk"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Known by the callsign &#8220;Kraft&#8221;, he entered military training but chose the <a href=\"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/ukraine\/national-guard\/azov-brigade\/\" data-type=\"unit\" data-id=\"11913\">\u041f\u043e\u043b\u043a \"\u0410\u0437\u043e\u0432<\/a> in 2020, anticipating war with the Russian Federation. In the unit, he had friends already serving and strong leadership. During the Defense of Mariupol at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he served as a squad leader, later conducting reconnaissance, assaults, and special tasks despite being wounded. He endured intense fighting and was eventually captured by Russian Forces, where he would survive the Olenivka Terrorist Attack against soldiers of the Azov Regiment, and other Mariupol defenders. He returned to Ukraine in September 2022 through a prisoner exchange and rejoined the fight in early 2023. He later formed and led a Technical Reconnaissance Unit, becoming the head of the Reconnaissance Platoon of the <a href=\"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/ukraine\/national-guard\/6th-special-purpose-battalion\/\" data-type=\"unit\" data-id=\"34110\">6-\u0439 \u0431\u0430\u0442\u0430\u043b\u044c\u0439\u043e\u043d \u0441\u043f\u0435\u0446\u0456\u0430\u043b\u044c\u043d\u043e\u0433\u043e \u043f\u0440\u0438\u0437\u043d\u0430\u0447\u0435\u043d\u043d\u044f<\/a>. Within two years, he became one of the brigade&#8217;s youngest battalion commanders, where he would become the battalion&#8217;s commander.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Known by the callsign &#8220;Kraft&#8221;, he entered military training but chose the Azov Regiment in 2020, anticipating war with the Russian Federation. In the unit, he had friends already serving and strong leadership. During the Defense of Mariupol at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, he served as a squad leader, later conducting reconnaissance, assaults, and special tasks despite being wounded. He endured intense fighting and was eventually captured by Russian Forces, where he would survive the&#8230;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":3620,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"class_list":["post-83014","commander","type-commander","status-publish","hentry"],"taxonomy_info":[],"featured_image_src_large":[],"author_info":{"display_name":"David Pipe","author_link":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/author\/davomme\/"},"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/commander\/83014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/commander"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/commander"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/militaryland.net\/ua\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}