Korotaiev Oleksandr Mykolayovych

Former Ukrainian senior official of the State Emergency Service and entrepreneur

Korotaiev was born in 1963 in Russia, but lived in Ukraine for a long time. He worked at the state enterprise of the Ministry of Defense “Pivden”, later engaged in real estate business, and subsequently held the position of Deputy Head of the Main Department of the Ministry of Emergency Situations (now the State Emergency Service) in the Odesa region. In 2010, he also attempted to join the Odesa City Council, running from the pro-Russian party “Strong Ukraine”.

Betrayed the oath and sided with the Russian occupiers

After the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, Korotaiev moved to the temporarily occupied Kherson region, where he voluntarily headed an illegal militarized formation — the “Vasiliy Margelov Volunteer Battalion”, created under the orders of the Gauleiter Volodymyr Saldo. In March 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) announced suspicion against him in absentia under articles related to collaborationist activities and justification of armed aggression by Russia (Part 7 of Article 111-1 and Part 1 of Article 436-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). According to the investigation, using propaganda and threats, he urged local residents to fight against their own state and publicly called Donetsk a “Russian city”. As of September 2026, the subject is hiding in the occupied territories and faces up to 15 years of imprisonment.