Military analyst and director of the "Come Back Alive" Foundation. Co-founder of the "Ukrainian Military Center" website and a former servicemember.
Taras Chmut was born on October 13, 1991, in Korostyshiv, Zhytomyr Oblast. Taras’s father was a private entrepreneur, and his mother worked at UNDP (the United Nations Development Programme—a global UN network that provides free and non-political assistance to member states in the field of development, particularly in overcoming poverty and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals).
Education
After high school, he enrolled at the Institute of Air Navigation at the National Aviation University (NAU), majoring in “Flight and Navigation Equipment Systems”; he completed his master’s degree in 2015 (specialization: avionics).
Career
Chmut has been interested in military topics since his school years. In 2008, at the age of 16, he co-founded (together with journalist Oleksandr Argat) the “Ukrainian Military Portal,” one of the first Ukrainian specialized platforms on security and defense. The portal was later renamed the "Ukrainian Military Center."
After completing his master’s degree, in 2015, he voluntarily signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine and began serving as a rifleman in the 501st Separate Marine Battalion of the Ukrainian Navy. He later transferred to a staff position in Mykolaiv, and in May 2016 was reassigned to the 137th Marine Battalion in Odesa. In the summer of 2016, he participated in the multinational “Sea Breeze 2016” exercises, after which he completed a NATO instructor training course in Lithuania.
From October 2016 to June 2017, he served in the combat zone in Donbas. He served as commander of a reconnaissance platoon in the 137th Battalion and participated in battles near Shyrokyne and Pavlopil. His total service time in the Marine Corps was approximately two and a half years.
In 2017, Chmut was demobilized with the rank of sergeant.
After demobilization, he returned to work at the Ukrainian Military Portal. He later became a co-founder of the analytical department of the “Come Back Alive” Foundation; in 2020, he became the head of that department, and on November 24 of that same year, Chmut was appointed director of the “Come Back Alive” Foundation.
Chmut is also the main host of the “Frontline Chat” podcast, which has been airing since January 2022. It is interesting to note that, according to Chmut himself, in early 2022 he planned to resign from the foundation and leave Ukraine to “live somewhere in Asia.”
It is worth noting that the “Come Back Alive” Foundation was the first charitable organization in Ukraine to receive permission to purchase lethal weapons. Thanks to this experience, on October 11, 2024, Chmut was appointed to the supervisory board of the Defense Procurement Agency (DPA). However, on January 24, 2025, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov removed Taras Chmut from this position.
Two weeks later, on February 5, 2025, Chmut was appointed to the supervisory board of the State Enterprise “Kyiv Aviation Institute.”
As of October 2025, according to his declaration, Taras Chmut is a millionaire. At the same time, Chmut serves as director of several NGOs and a charitable foundation.
Taras Chmut’s profile on the OpenDataBot portal. Screenshot: UN
Scandals
- Amid the conflict surrounding appointments to the supervisory board of the State Agency for Defense Procurement, Taras Chmut publicly accused Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, of spreading “rumors and manipulations.” Shabunin then claimed that, at that time, the then-acting Minister of Defense, Rustem Umerov, had taken direct control of the Defense Procurement Agency and was dictating which contracts to sign with whom.
- In 2022, a comment by Taras Chmut was circulated online claiming that 70% of the funds raised by the “Come Back Alive” Foundation in 2022 had allegedly been stolen. It later turned out that the fund director’s words had been taken out of context and that the discussion was about corruption in the Ministry of Defense; Chmut had merely noted that the amount in question, which was allegedly embezzled during procurement, corresponded to 70% of the fund’s annual budget.
- In May 2025, Taras Chmut stated that ending the war would be disadvantageous for Ukraine. According to him, Russia’s defeat is imminent. “It seems to me that they [Russia – ed.] are closer to crumbling and losing. That is why they are ready for it. And we are ready to continue fighting. As we can see, we still have the people and the means. As we can see from the territory we are losing—we still have the people and the means. As we can see from the ratio of losses—we still have the people and the means,” Chmut said in a comment to TSN.
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