Heroes who died in the first days of the full-scale war

"Nothing could hold me back then. I told my mom: take the children. I got in the car and drove to my husband's position at the border. There was a completely shot-up trailer where the boys were sitting. And my husband was lying next to it," Oksana recalls with horror.

She took her husband's body away on her own. At first, she thought about running up to the killers and telling them everything she thought about them, but then she came to her senses: "You have two children. What would stop them from placing you next to your husband?" He was taken home and a funeral was organized before their village, a few kilometers from the Russian border, was completely occupied.

Then she spent six months under occupation with her mother and two children. Oksana admits that she did not want to live. Sometimes she would hold her children's hands and think: "If something hits us, I wish all three of us would die at once."

A few months later, she was given a stern wake-up call by her mother: "Do you realize that you have children? If you don't want them, I don't want them either." This brought her back to her senses.

The family decided to leave when the threats started: "If you don't send your eldest son to school, your child will be taken away." Oksana knew that her child would never have a Russian education. She, her children and her mother left via Russia and returned to Ukraine. They now live in Volyn.

"I didn't even think about staying abroad. I don't know how you can go to live abroad when your husband laid down his life for Ukraine."

At the same time, Oksana is hurt by the fact that her husband's position did not prevent his family from leaving for Russia. Denys's mother left for Russia, where her daughter lived, a few days after her son's funeral. His father followed. Even the heaviest loss did not make them doubt Russian propaganda: they blame Ukraine for their son's death.

"This is us in our house. And this is our last New Year together... And this is us in Kharkiv. We always had a dream of moving to Kharkiv," Oksana shows us their photos together.

She recalls that Denys had been a border guard since 2007. He was the love of her life. He was kind, cheerful, hardworking, and loved nature. Her son from her first marriage started calling him dad. People were surprised: they look so much alike, aren't they family? 

Now the 9-year-old boy has withdrawn into himself, and his 4-year-old daughter still asks: "Where is dad? When will he come back? And where is the brightest star with dad on it?"

"To be honest, I still blame myself for leaving him there. Sometimes I go to bed in tears, wake up and say: 'I'm sorry,'" she can't stop her longing.

"I buried my son via video call". The story of the "Ghost of Kyiv" Viacheslav Radionov

Five in the morning, February 24, 2022. A missile strike on Vasylkiv near Kyiv. The invaders are trying to seize a military airfield to land an armed assault force. The 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade was based at the airfield. In order to protect the planes, they had to be lifted into the sky.

Viacheslav Radionov, a 25-year-old senior lieutenant, took the helm of the first fighter. At that time, enemy aircraft were already moving toward Vasylkiv. The battle was unequal: three Russian fighters opposed him.

This was Viacheslav's first and last combat flight. However, he actually covered the takeoff of other pilots who managed to take off and survived. 

On the same day, they managed to shoot down more than one enemy aircraft. They were later called the "Ghosts of Kyiv" for their brave defense of the skies over the capital.

Viacheslav Radionov hails from Zaporizhzhya, from a family of military pilots. His grandfather taught him modeling and made him fall in love with the sky. He studied to become a pilot at a Zaporizhzhya lyceum. He is his mother's only son.

"The last time I talked to him was on the eve of the invasion. I asked him: ‘How are things over there?’. And he said: ‘Everything is fine, don't worry’. He was not very talkative. But he was kind, sympathetic, and sacrificial. He gave everything to his friends. He did well in school. There were never any problems with him at all. He would do what was needed silently," says mother Inna.

She recalls that in the first days of the invasion, she was not even able to bury her son in a human way. At first, she shouted to the chaplain with anger and tears, "Bring my son home!" and then stepped back, realizing that someone would risk their life because of this. 

In the end, Viacheslav had to be buried in secret in a common cemetery. His mother only asked volunteers to dress him in a ceremonial uniform.

Her son was solemnly reburied only in November 2022 at the Vasylkiv cemetery, on the Alley of Heroes, next to his fellow pilots. But this did not make it easier for the mother. Nor did it make her feel better when she received the Hero of Ukraine star from the president.

"Although it is impossible to realize his death. I don't really live with the idea that I don't have a son, that he is dead. For me, it's better when I know that he is somewhere, as if he has left and we just can't get in touch. He is still alive for me." 

Vitaliy Sapylo, a 21-year-old tank driver: "Mom, we annihilated them!"

Vitaliy Sapylo is 21 years old – forever. He fought for less than a day. Having been trained as a tanker, he managed to serve only six months. In March, he was supposed to go to the east of Ukraine, to the front line.

On February 24, their brigade, which was at a training ground in Rivne, received an urgent order to move to Kyiv Oblast. Vitaliy was a tank platoon commander. The next day, after the battle, he called his mother elated.

"He said that the Russians did not expect the attack, they were pushed in columns, and they stupidly left their vehicles and jumped into the woods. He could not get his act together he said: ‘We have smashed them to smithereens!’" Mariana, Vitaliy's mother, recalls in a conversation with hromadske.

They managed to neutralize three dozen pieces of enemy equipment. It was 100 kilometers from the capital in Termakhivka, a village to the west of the Chornobyl zone. Later, the tanker's brothers-in-arms told his mother what happened that day.

"After they repelled the attack, there was no threat. They were about to leave, and Vitaliy transferred to another tank because his was out of order. And then the Russian air force suddenly attacked. They hit the tank of the first brigade. Then two more strikes, and they hit theirs..."

Vitaliy was thrown by the blast wave. He was still alive when they carried him to one of the neighboring houses. However, when the medics arrived, it was too late. He showed no signs of life.

"Hello," says Mariana, kissing her son's portrait at the Sokilnytsia cemetery on the outskirts of Lviv. She comes to him every day to talk.

"We greet each other like this every day. We talk about what happened during the day," Mariana explains, looking at the portrait. "He was just so positive. I can’t not to tell him what happened today and what we're planning for tomorrow."

“When Vitaliy came to me with a statement that he was going to the Ground Forces Academy, it was completely unexpected," Mariana recalls. "After all, he lived for sports until the 11th grade. He was studying at the football school of Lviv's Karpaty football club”.

"And then he met some guys who served in the Ground Forces Academy. Then he came and said: ‘I'm not going to enter the academy as a sportsman. I'm going to be a tanker’."

Bright, strong, always positive, a "firecracker," is how his mother describes the boy. She says that he always dismissed problems, saying that they can always be solved.

"There will be problems when we are gone. And when we are here, we will solve the problems. Anytime and in any way," Vitaliy Sapylo said.