77-year-old Boris Antonovich Melnik got into the Book of Records of Ukraine as the most senior volunteer. Since the beginning of the war, the grandfather with the call sign "Friend Tikhon" from the first days went to defend Ukraine to the front. For these merits his name will be entered into the book for life..

Grandfather serves as part of the 5th Separate Battalion of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, Glavpost notes.

Boris Melnik - discreet, serious and shy. The first to go to the front were his two sons.. He followed them without a second thought..

"I was ashamed to stay at home at a time when Ukraine was in danger," he said.

At the forefront of "Tikhon" immediately got into hell. In the sands mortar shelling lasted 15 hours continuously. As part of the fifth battalion of the Ukrainian Volunteer Army, he took up arms, stood in dress, was a driver, helped with the housework. And when the fire subsided, music sounded.

"When the guys were going to the position in the evening, he was raising his spirit on his bandura. He knows a lot of Ukrainian, folk songs, such a "friend Tikhon", - shared his impressions of Melnik the head of the Rivne region volunteer association Roman Koval.

"He is very creative, he was endlessly making something, he had such interesting ideas, he sings, sings thoughts, he is cool," said Alla Megel, head of the information department of the Ukrainian voluntary corps..

"He is an incredible kobzar, he knows life stories. His strength is simply in his presence, and our task is to keep him longer. Support and an example for imitation ", - says the commander of the 8th battalion UDA Andrei Gerger about Boris.

In spite of his advanced age, he is not going to keep the advanced "friend Tikhon".

"I have one dream and a desire: for the war to end faster than me, to live to the end of the war, to victory," says Miller.