Very close to the first month since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, the lives of thousands of Ukrainians who have fought with more ardor than means and who have been able to contain the advance of a superior enemy. Their looks tell stories of illusions that will never come true with families and friends who mourn their absence. These are just eight examples.
Inna Derusova.
Inna Derusova, sergeant
The first woman decorated with the highest distinction
Sergeant Inna Derusova, a native of the now self-proclaimed pro-Russian republic of Lugansk, will go down in her country’s history as the first woman to be decorated as ‘Hero of Ukraine’. There are only 105 people with that distinction. The day the Russian invasion began, she was scheduled to return from her vacation, but she couldn’t. She was trapped in Okhtyrka, in the Sumy region, one of the hardest hit, where she gave herself to assisting the wounded. According to the Ukrainian authorities, she was killed when her post was bombed on February 26. Before, she “had saved ten people and was helping another affected person.”
Vitaly Skakun.
Vitaly Skakun, lieutenant
The “cheerful” young man who blew himself up to cut off the Russian advance
Vitaly Skakun’s boyish face is one of the best known of this war. He sacrificed his life to blow up a bridge to prevent the Russian advance. According to his comrades-in-arms, he contacted them and told them that he was going to blow up the Genichesky Road pass, which connected Kremlin forces in Crimea with mainland Ukraine. “Just afterwards an explosion was heard,” the official reports say. He died on February 25, just one day after the invasion began. In the memory of his classmates, a “cheerful and jovial” young man of those “with whom you connect as soon as you meet them without knowing very well why.”
Andrey Litun.
Andrey Litun, lieutenant colonel
‘The expert’ who handled communication techniques
Married with two daughters aged 15 and 5, Andrey Litun was 37 years old when he died. It was March 6 in Zaporizhia, when he was leading the mountain assault battalion. Nicknamed ‘The Expert’ by his companions and highly skilled in communication techniques in combat, he led a fight in which, despite their numerical inferiority, “they inflicted enormous damage on the enemy.” The Government of his country decorated him, posthumously, as ‘Hero of Ukraine’ for “personal courage and heroism shown in the defense of state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine.” His wife Marina currently serves in the 128th Brigade.
Ivan Rebar.
Ivan Rebar, volunteer
“It is better to have a lame horse than no horse”
At 44 years old, Ivan Rebar was a war veteran. He volunteered in the conflict that broke out in Donbas in 2014 where he was injured. As he was being taken to a hospital, the caravan was attacked. “He understood that he would not run very far, so he took out a grenade and after shouting ‘They say it is better to go with God than to be a prisoner’, he made it explode,” says a colleague. He survived, although he had to be operated on nine times and suffered from a persistent limp. Despite her, when Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, he did not hesitate to return to war: “It is better to have a lame horse than no horse at all,” he used to say. He died two days later.
Alexander Lukyanovich.
Alexander Lukyanovich, soldier
Neutralized 30 enemy units” before dying
In September 2021, Alexander Lukyanovich enlisted in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. When the invasion began, he was assigned to the kyiv region as a member of a tank platoon and, according to his command, managed to neutralize “30 enemy units.” Then a Russian airstrike blew up his post. He didn’t get out of there alive. He was 33 years old and now his relatives remember him as a man “who loved to see the world” and “hated injustice.” Anna, his partner, and his two children, six-year-old Veronica and 15-month-old Andrew, are among the more than two million refugees who have fled the war. They mourn him in Poland.
Olga Semidyanova.
Olga Semidyanova, volunteer
“If we don’t go, they will come to our houses”
He died on March 3 at the border of the Donetsk and Zaporizhia regions. In 2008, still pregnant with her fifth child, she and her husband decided to adopt six orphaned children. In 2014, Olga’s husband volunteered to fight in Donetsk. She soon did the same and began to help as a paramedic. In 2016 she entered the Aidar Battalion, where she perfected her medical knowledge and her military training. Every time she went to the front, she repeated to her children: “If we don’t go, they will come to our houses.” When the Russians took up positions, she refused to be evacuated and continued to treat the wounded until she was shot dead.
Vladislav Ukrainets.
Vladislav Ukrainets, Lieutenant
About to be a father and pending his companions
The day before he died, Vladislav Ukrainets wrote to his pregnant wife to tell her what he would like the baby to be called. The young soldier was 22 years old when he fell near the hard-hit city of Jersón. He commanded the mechanized platoon of one of the units of the 59th Motorized Infantry Brigade and tried to cover the exit of his companions until his last breath. His now widow Kateryna remembers his natural self-sacrifice. “He always said that if he had to choose who would live, him or his soldiers or his family, he would sacrifice himself without hesitation.” He still has a baby on the way, the decoration of ‘Hero of Ukraine’ and “all the memories”.
Maksym Bilokon.
Maksym Bilokon, Lieutenant
“I can’t even bury it because they shoot all the time”
“My Maksymko was planning a wedding… Damn war.” It is the heartbreaking cry of Tatiana, the mother of 24-year-old Lieutenant Maksym Bilokon. The young Ukrainian soldier died in Chernigov, one of the hardest hit by Russian troops. The beginning of the war caught him planning his wedding with Darina, also a soldier. She had a girl from a previous relationship that he “took care of her as if she were his own,” the woman recalls. Passionate about tanks, he spoke with his mother the day after the invasion began. The next day his armored car was blown up. “I can’t even bury him because they shoot all the time and there’s no way to pick up his body,” he cries.
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