Jerzy Tyc

Jerzy Tyc (24 November 1967 – summer 2025) was a Polish pro-Russian activist and soldier. He was the founder of the Kursk Association, which was dedicated to preserving and restoring Soviet war monuments and military cemeteries in Poland. He died fighting as a volunteer in the Russian Armed Forces during the Russo-Ukrainian War, where he served under the callsign "Zygmunt".

Life and career prior to activism Jerzy Tyc was born on 24 November 1967 in Poland. According to Tyc, his mother, Helena Tyc, The soldier pulled her from a burning house that had been set on fire by retreating German forces. Tyc grew up in the village of Surmówka in northern Poland, where he and his younger brother Adam, one of his five siblings, ran a farm and kept bees. As children, Tyc and his friends would dress up as Red Army soldiers and play war.

Tyc graduated from military school and served as an artillery non-commissioned officer in the Polish Armed Forces, commanding a platoon until 1989, when he left military service during Poland's democratic transition. After leaving the military, Tyc worked as a police officer and later became co-owner of a construction company while also engaging in farming activities. naming it after Kursk, the site of the largest World War II tank battle. Tyc began by attempting to repair abandoned Cold War bunkers near Katowice. During this period, he began making regular appearances in Russian state media.

In 2016, Russian television journalist Anna Zakharian contacted Tyc for help locating the grave of her grandfather went missing in action after fighting in Poland during World War II. Following this, she and Tyc began an intimate relationship, and Zakharyan became Kursk Association's Russian representative. would be detained in 2018 by the Polish Internal Security Agency on allegations of posing a threat to Poland's security and making "arrangements for espionage activities"; she was deported. The renovated monument was unveiled on 22 June 2017, the 76th anniversary of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, with members of the Russian diplomatic mission in attendance, whereas Polish officials declined participation. Said date coincided with the passing of the Polish decommunisation law at the initiative of the Law and Justice party, aimed at demolishing Soviet monuments. The monument became subject to demands for removal under a pending amendment to the law aimed at eliminating communist symbols from public spaces; it lacked inscriptions in Polish language, a legal requirement.

Move to Russia, volunteering in the war, and death In May 2020, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu awarded Tyc the for his "high achievements in the field of military history development, humanitarian knowledge and implementation of important public projects of historical and patriotic orientation". The Russkiy Mir Foundation (a Russian government-organised non-governmental organisation founded by Vladimir Putin's decree) published a profile of Tyc in 2020. There he joined the Russian Historical Society. (whose president was Sergey Naryshkin, director of the Foreign Intelligence Service In 2025, he joined the Russian military as a volunteer to fight in the Russo-Ukrainian War, adopting the callsign "Zygmunt" in honour of the Polish general Zygmunt Berling.)

The first public information about Tyc's death came in the form of an unverified report by Nasha Versia on 11 September 2025, stating that he died in Eastern Ukraine. Russian authorities and media confirmed his death ten days later. According to a Russian Telegram channel, he went missing in action in Eastern Ukraine in June, and his remains were discovered in September.