Sharhovska, Who Enlisted on Her 46th Birthday, Dies at 46

Olena "Jane" Sharhovska, a Hospitallers medical battalion veteran who worked in journalism before the war, has died at 46. Hospitallers commander Yana Zinkevych and her former colleagues at Novynarnia announced her death on 24 October.

She was in Portugal when Russia launched its full-scale invasion. An injury delayed her return, and she volunteered from abroad until 10 September 2022, her birthday, when she joined the military at 46. She served with the International Legion of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Bakhmut, Toretsk and Kharkiv Oblast for 25 months, carrying out medical evacuations and training other service members in tactical medicine. She was discharged in August 2024 for health reasons.

Before medicine, Sharhovska worked as a journalist, translator, editor and social media specialist across television and print, and contributed to projects for Ukraїner and Osvitoria. From 2015 she volunteered at the front with the First Volunteer Mobile Hospital named after Mykola Pyrohov, then joined Hospitallers. Zinkevych said she "went to evacuate the wounded from the hottest sections of the front line" toward stabilisation points.

In 2016 she co-organised the Invisible Battalion March in Kyiv, where participants asked the authorities to open military positions previously reserved for men. As a member of the Women's Veteran Movement she also pressed for female defenders to receive proper equipment.

Novynarnia remembered her as "a person of words and travel, with a deep interest in the world and in people," and said she kept fundraising for fellow soldiers and buying vehicles for the front. Her motto, it said, was: "Do what you believe needs to be done, and then come what may." Bohdan Lohvynenko, founder of Ukraїner, recalled that they lived in neighbouring buildings in Vynohradar and often discussed editorial matters over coffee in one of their kitchens.