Operator, SBU Special Operations Center Alpha; former professional tennis player
Serhiy Stakhovskyi represented Ukraine as a professional tennis player for 20 years. On 27 February 2022 he walked into Ukraine at the Slovak border while every car was leaving, and spent his first three months alongside SBU Alpha in Kyiv. Offered a place in May 2022, he declined, believing an ex-tennis player would dishonour the unit, and volunteered instead. After the Oskil crossing in September 2022 he joined officially: six months as an advisor to the commander of the National Guard, then the SBU’s Special Operations Center Alpha from March 2023, where he worked as an FPV engineer and co-pilot. He is one of very few operators of a unit that never shows its faces who is cleared to be seen and heard.
All we do is just buy time. We buy time for that next generation to be able to be stronger.
Photo: still from Episode 23, recorded live in Washington.
Ukraine Military History Institute