Yuri “Keks” Kopchak is a fan of the football club “Sambir”.

Yuriy Mikhailovich Kopchak was born on April 21, 1995 in the city of Sambir, Lviv region. He studied at Cambir Gymnasium and School No. 9. He continued his studies at Lviv Medical College “Monada” with the specialty “dental technician”. After completing his studies, he worked with his father in the field of dentistry. Since childhood, he was interested in football, participated in competitions of street teams. He attended a music school, loved to sing, and later organized discos. He showed particular interest in the computer. With age, he switched from children's entertainment to programs and website creation, worked for individual patriotic parties. He took an active part in the public life of the city, attended rallies and mass events.

During the Revolution of Dignity, he was on the capital's Maidan with members of the Sambir branch of the Svoboda party. From the memories of his father: - “Yura was surprised that the barricades on Hrushevsky are located between the golden eagle and the VVshniks, who were in the Ukrainian house and no one pays attention to this. With the guys, they organized the storming of the Ukrainian House. Yura wrapped the basement door with reinforcement, later this reinforcement had to be cut off, because no one could unscrew it. With a smile, he wondered to himself how he managed it.”

Yuri came to the fan stand of the main team of the city in 2010, almost immediately after the foundation of the Sambor fan movement. Teammates recall that, unlike most of his peers, the young man took this step not only in order to give an outlet to his aggression on football, but approached the issue in a balanced way. As a schoolboy, he asked one of the leaders of the movement whether the boys were purely “into football”, or were they also interested in street politics. “He wanted to get into the circle of like-minded people in order to make the world a better place. Because he saw it, as we all saw it then,” one of Yuri's teammates recalls his friend.

Once in the sector, he immediately began to fountain ideas: trainings, lectures, marches, promotions, development of the symbolism and attributes of the club. He wanted to do everything here and now, he was really in a hurry to live. It often happened that it was his initiative that was the driver for the activity of the movement. The idea was only recently expressed, and he has already taken up its implementation. The rest of the guys had to pull up because the process was already started. So it was with the 2011 torchlight procession in Sambor. So it was with the site for the patriotic community of the city. Just at the meeting the idea sounded, and the next day Yuri already drops the keys from the admin. And with the cleaning of dangerous places for swimming in the Dniester it was the same. The discussion has just begun, and he is already negotiating for special equipment.

He was equally zealous in supporting his native club. “Did not break the voice - it means he was not at the match” - Yura liked to repeat. There was no fan movement activity that he did not join. When there was a choice between education and football - he did not hesitate to choose the latter. In the spring of 2013, representatives of the fan movement were invited to the Sambor City Council to talk about the new season, communication between the club, the authorities and the fan community. Yuri was at this meeting one of those who represented the interests of the fan movement. The teammates then worried that if he was too proactive, he would not draw everyone into a new adventure.

The other side of the team's support was meetings with fans of other clubs outside the stadium. Friends say that even when Yura was not supposed to participate in the planned events, he was always ready to go to support his, and if necessary, to replace one of his comrades. It would seem that he always had a phrase prepared for this: - “Okay, I will take medicine, water, and in general, suddenly someone will not be able to leave,” he said, calming the people around rather than himself. To support his team, he went to Bucha to play with a local team. Together with the fans of the football club “Sambir” took part in the celebration of the opening of the new reconstructed stadium named after him. Lev Brovarsky.

With the beginning of full-scale Russian aggression, Yuri Kopchak, under the nickname “Keks”, stood in defense of Ukraine from the enemy invasion. He voluntarily signed up for cooperation with the SSO, but without waiting for the call, in March he went with the guys to Kiev, where he became a volunteer in the Brotherhood. In May, he joined the ranks of the Armed Forces - battalion “SKALA” w/ch A0891, taking part in the battles in the Kharkiv direction. He was engaged in air reconnaissance, with the help of drones he detected enemy positions, adjusted artillery. He also developed programs for drones. Yuriy Kopchak died on June 18, 2022 while performing a combat mission, during shelling from an enemy tank near the city of Izyum (Kharkiv region). Farewell to the Warrior in his hometown.

After the war, Sambor fans will gather in the home sector and remember their friend: proactive, courageous, responsible, reliable and often incomprehensible. Perhaps somewhere in the depths of himself, Yura knew that he would leave prematurely, so he was in such a hurry to live...