Roman “Pashtet” Potishka is a fan of the football club “Karpaty” (Lviv).
Roman Mikhailovich Potishka was born on June 13, 1995 in the city of Kropyvnytskyi (formerly. Kirovograd). He studied at Lyceum No. 93 of Lviv City Council, after which he received his education in the Separate Structural Unit “Kryvyi Rih Professional College of the National Aviation University”, after which he entered NAU. Dad worked as an air traffic controller, instilled in him a love of aviation. Therefore, since childhood, Roman dreamed of being a pilot. He was involved in football from an early age, and according to the memories of relatives and friends, was very proficient in this sport.
From the 7th grade, Roman began to attend Carpathians matches at the stadium, but most of all his attention was attracted by the fan sector. And already at the age of 14, he and a friend first dared to come there, despite the fact that the guys were a little timid to take this step. Later, a friend will recall one of the matches of that time, namely the game “Carpathians” - “Tavria” on Holy Saturday: - “Roman decided that time to light a huge army smoke. It was not difficult to calculate it, because there were few people in the sector. “Carpathians” score a goal, Roma ignites, smokes in half a stadium. The match is over, we leave the stadium... and here, at the exit, he is detained and led into the bobbin. Getting to the ward on Good Saturday was not much of an adventure.”
Then there were trips to Crimea and trips to Luhansk region, after which I wanted to attend matches abroad. They went to Poland, where they spent the night with friends in the entrance, after which they supported the national team already in San Marino. He took an active part in the events of the Revolution of Dignity together with friends from the fan movement “Carpathians”, which his parents later learned about.
In August 2014, he joined the ranks of the newly created “Azov”. In February 2015 he participated in the Pavlopil-Shyrokyn operation, then performed tasks in Shyrokyny and Granitne. Since 2016, he participated in all combat missions, where a special purpose reconnaissance group was involved: Marinka, Krasnogorovka, Svitlodarskaya arc, Pavlopil, Popasna and others. “Pashtet” was an exemplary soldier, showed leadership qualities and set the highest bar of fire training.
A full-scale Russian invasion Pashtet met in Mariupol as commander of the third combat group of the OZSP “Azov”. During one of the street fights, he got a femoral artery wound, lost a lot of blood, and after consciousness, was saved by a brother. In 4 days he returned from the hospital and went to help the OKP. Despite the fact that he barely walked, he constantly rushed into battle to his group. He refused the opportunity to be evacuated from the surrounded city by helicopter.
On the evening of April 6, 2022, he decided to travel by boat from Azovstal and join his battle group. Already in the morning, the brothers learned that the enemy had hit a boat with anti-tank missiles. Searches from the air yielded nothing. In addition to Roman, other famous fans died on that boat - Alexey Yanin from Zaporizhia and Maxim Grachev from Kryvyi Rih.
On March 25, 2022, he was awarded the Order of Bohdan Khmelnytsky III degree; on April 17, 2022 he was awarded the Order “For Courage” of the III degree (posthumously), as well as awarded the title of “Captain”. Farewell to Roman took place more than a year at the Lychakiv cemetery in Lviv.
- “Once we had a dialogue with him, in one of the devastated apartments of Mariupol. The phrase “let's take the fight” sounded from his mouth, which characterized him as a courageous and brave brother. Fell from the hands of the enemy, fighting. We will no longer have friends like you,” recalls Romana Potishka, one of the brothers.
