Konstantin Yurievich Pestushko

Kostiantyn Yuriyovych Pestushko (; 14 February 1898 – 9 May 1921) was a Ukrainian military leader, commander of the rebel , Otaman of the Kholodny Yar Republic.

Biography Kostiantyn Yuriyovych Pestushko was born on 14 February 1898, in Hannivka, into a wealthy Ukrainian peasant family.

After studying at the rural primary two-year "ministerial" school, where he showed outstanding abilities in mathematics, Kostiantyn Pestushko entered the Oleksandrivsk secondary 7-grade mechanical and technical school (now the Zaporizhzhia National Technical University), the full course from which he graduated in 1916 - but for an unsatisfactory assessment of behavior in connection with a hooligan act against a mathematics teacher, he was not certified and in August 1916 he volunteered to fight in the First World War.

In October 1919, having united several small partisan detachments of otamans Skirda and with a total strength of up to 500 people, he established contacts with the Makhnovists, received weapons from them, formed and led the Middle Dnieper group of the Revolutionary Insurgent Army of Ukraine. He acted as a member of the Makhnovist uprising against the military dictatorship of Anton Denikin. After he had increased the forces of the Middle Dnieper group to 3000 fighters, he renamed it to the Republican Forces and began to act independently.