Today, we learned that our friend, Denys Antipov, died at the frontlines from artillery fire on 11th of May. It was near Izum in Kharkiv oblast. We are heartbroken and refuse to believe it. 

To say that he was a good man is an understatement. He was amazing. We met him back in 2014, when he started a large project, a robotic arm prosthesis, when the war first broke out - and joined without a second thought. This is largely how our team formed. The project goal was initially to help veterans who lost arms and hands in battle, and also anybody else. Our uEMG project is a part of it. 

He started the project just before he himself went to war for the first time, and came back in 2016. Later, he rented and furnished a small workshop with CNC machines and 3D printers. There, he cut wood, leather and other materials with lasers and made things like beautiful wooden puzzles, figurines, gifts, and engravings on objects like wooden boxes and knives. His recent passion was making musical boxes which played folk Ukrainian songs. He even started a Youtube channel and opened an Ebay shop to promote Ukrainian culture to people from different countries. He also 3D printed and sold supplies for 3D printers, and once collected 100 different 3D filament spools which he arranged by colors on a huge wall-sized stand, which made him very amused and proud. Later he bought a huge inkjet printer to expand a bit. The workshop grew quite a lot since 2016, and there were several people working there before the 2022 war broke out. He also created another large project - an online platform where other army veteran makers could have their businesses and sell stuff and promote it. It's called ua.gifts. It is big and has united a lot of people, but it started in that same small workshop.

Denys was (it's so hard to write this word!) a bright light, full of energy in everything that he did. He could do anything, and often all at once, and crack jokes in the process. Formally he was a soldier and a Korean translator and university professor. But really he was so much more, and there was something about him that would make you believe you could do anything. He often gave interviews and told news from all over the world about the projects, and lately about war. On 9th of March, he got injured and was in the hospital. Back then, we were worried but really glad he was alive and for some reason we believed nothing else could happen to him, because he was already injured once - and lightning (or shell) doesn't strike twice, does it…

And we also planned to do so much together. It's hard to understand what to do further. We don't know how to deal with this loss. We just want him to be back so much, to win the war, and then to see him again and continue our projects!

We’re proud to have known you. We will never forget you. You will always be our friend, and a hero! Glory to the heroes!

P.S. And here's how the musical box that Denys made sounds... It's playing Chervona Ruta, a popular Ukrainian song written in the 1970s and still catchy today. When people get drunk, they often sing it (which is how we know).
And this will sound even sadder, but we can't help but wonder what melodies he would make next for the box....