N. F. Vatutin

Nikolai Fyodorovich Vatutin was an army general. He was born on 13 December 1901 in the village of Chepukhino of what is currently the Valui District of the Belgorod Region. In 1943, during the holding battle on the Kursk Bulge, he took command of the Voronezh Front. Under his command, the Voronezh Front troops successfully repelled enemy attacks and, when switched from defense to offense, N. F. Vatutin showed the example of forming powerful shock troops. In February 1944, he was heavily wounded. He died in a hospital in Kyiv on 15 April 1944 and was buried in Kyiv. N. F. Vatutin was made a Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.