Irina Yanina

Irina Yanina (1966 to 1999) was a Russian military nurse and medical sergeant who was named a Hero of the Russian Federation. Born in Taldy-Kurgan in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, she graduated from a medical school and worked as a nurse's assistant and nurse in a tuberculosis dispensary and a maternity hospital. In 1995 she joined the Internal Troops of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and served as a nurse in a medical company of the 22nd Operational Brigade, completing two tours during the First Chechen War. In August 1999, during the fighting for the village of Karamakhi in Dagestan, she was with an evacuation group that treated fifteen wounded soldiers and, riding an armoured personnel carrier into fire three times, helped bring out twenty-eight men. On the fourth trip she organised the loading of the wounded and covered the withdrawal with a rifle; the vehicle was hit and set on fire, and she died after getting the wounded out. Her unit placed her permanently on its muster roll.