Heroes of hromadske 2025

DEFENDERS OF POKROVSK

For nearly two years, the 68th Oleksa Dovbush Separate Jaeger Brigade has been holding the line on the Pokrovsk axis. The Jaegers entered this sector after the Russians captured Avdiivka and, to this day, defend the main city in southern Donetsk Oblast. The Jaegers are the beating heart of Pokrovsk’s defense — one that fights bravely to the end.

hromadske journalists have repeatedly documented the heroism of the brigade’s fighters: during the scorching summer of 2024, when the most dramatic battles unfolded on the Pokrovsk axis, and this year, when Russian troops had already infiltrated the city.

hromadske honors the soldiers of the 68th Brigade for their courage and resilience in holding the hottest sector.

LEONID NOMERCHUK

Every time Leonid Nomerchuk returns from an evacuation trip, he wonders whether he did enough to convince people to leave the danger zone. Since May 2022, he has been working in frontline areas, yet he still aches for the fate of every Ukrainian remaining in those towns. In Pokrovsk, he once got down on his knees to persuade locals to board the evacuation vehicle.

“Older people, especially, have nowhere to go if they’re left alone. They’re afraid — they think we’ll take them to the train station and abandon them. That’s why, before we evacuate anyone, we first find places that can take them. Right now, every organization is overwhelmed,” Leonid told hromadske journalists in the frontline town of Bilytske.

Despite enormous risks, Leonid Nomerchuk — head of the volunteer service Salvation and police chaplain with the Chaplain Patrol — keeps driving to the front and talking people into leaving.

VASYL BAYDAK

A stand-up comedian and volunteer whose charity shows have raised millions for the Defense Forces.

His most recent performance at Kyiv’s Palace of Sports brought in more than 6.5 million hryvnias ($153,900) for the military. Since the full-scale invasion began, Vasyl has raised over 15 million hryvnias ($355,150) for Ukraine’s defenders.

Baydak also supports independent media, including hromadske, by drawing attention to important campaigns and initiatives.

MYKHAILO SUKMANOVSKYI

Father Mykhailo, parish priest of the Blessed Mykolai Charnetsky Church of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church in Zolochiv, Lviv OBlast, founded the Merciful Samaritan for Children with Special Needs fund and a rehabilitation center for people with intellectual disabilities. For those who, because of their conditions, cannot learn to read or write; whom healthy peers keep at a distance; whom teachers would rather not have in class.

Father Mykhailo created a warm community where they are loved, taught, and every success is celebrated. The center offers salt-mine therapy, massage, swimming, art, music, and dance classes. Some community members help Father Mykhailo during services and take part in preparing religious holidays — staging Christmas nativity scenes, for example. The best rehabilitation for them is work on the farm that Father Mykhailo also built.

The fund also runs sessions for parents and caregivers as successful socialization is impossible without their help.

VALENTYN KORENCHUK

Valentyn Korenchuk was one of the “Ghosts of Kyiv.” The legendary pilot of the 40th Tactical Aviation Brigade, which defended — and still defends — the skies over the capital. Squadron commander who, on the first day of the full-scale invasion, saved downtown Kyiv from enemy bombing and won an air battle, downing a Russian Su-25 — without weapons!

To the younger pilots he was an example; they called him Dad, Root. To all of us he is known as Bdzholiar (“Beekeeper”). Valentyn defended the country from the cockpit and died in aerial combat on April 27, 2024. This year, hromadske published a story about Valentyn Korenchuk: his wife and fellow aviators spoke about the hero to whom the entire nation owes a debt.

VIKTOR BORKUTA

Viktor’s son Oleksiy volunteered for the front just days after the full-scale invasion began. He fought as a grenade launcher operator for two years. After a severe injury, one-third of his brain stopped functioning. He lay in a coma for 21 days.

“Doctors said only a handful survive wounds like that — and even then with no hope of regaining movement, speech, or awareness,” they told the family. But the wounded fighter’s father thought differently. “We have to fight, not grieve. If I let myself grieve, it’s over for both of us,” Viktor Borkuta told himself.

Alongside the doctors’ treatment, Viktor devised his own rehabilitation system for his son. He talked to him, tried to elicit any emotion, recited poetry, invented special exercises, lived with Oleksiy in hospitals and rehab centers for a year. When there was nowhere to sleep, he slept on the corridor floor.

Today Oleksiy can walk, talk, use a phone — he can live. And Viktor continues his father’s work: caring for his son and refusing to let him slip into oblivion.

VOLODYMYR DUBROVETS

Azov fighter Volodymyr Dubrovets, at age 24, made the most important decision of his life: he became a father to his brother’s eight children after the brother and his wife were killed by a mine.

Social workers grilled him with real interrogations to determine whether the children could be entrusted to him.

“They asked if I needed a psychologist because I had just come back from the war. They wanted to know my income, how I would manage the children’s daily life, schooling, and what I’d do if they got sick. Back then, I didn’t even know how I’d earn money for the whole family. But household chores didn’t scare me. What mattered was the children’s emotional state — what was in their hearts. They were deeply depressed,” Volodymyr recalls.

Last year, Volodymyr got married; in March, his own son was born. Now Volodymyr Dubrovets’s family has nine children — and he has enough love for all of them.

“War prepared me for this load. If it weren’t for the war, maybe I wouldn’t have dared to become their guardian,” Volodymyr says.

TETIANA DEMCHUK

Tetiana Demchuk from Khmelnytskyi Oblast raised two sons on her own. Both became soldiers — Azov fighters.

The elder, Bohdan, died during an operation in encircled Mariupol from shrapnel to the neck. His mother waited two and a half years for his body, only to learn it had burned in a vehicle right after the wounding. Bohdan Demchuk was buried in absentia. Relatives placed one of his socks and soil from the Urzuf training ground in the urn.

Her other son, Oleh, has been in captivity since May 2022. She is waiting for him. She says: “My soul is in captivity.”

This award is for raising worthy Ukrainians, for respecting their choices, for choosing the path of light despite unbearable loss. For resilience, for the strength of a mother’s love that nothing can break.

DMYTRO KRASNOVSKYI

“I asked: ‘Are my legs still there? Because I can feel them.’ I saw he didn’t want to tell me. I started calming him: ‘Buddy, I’m a medic myself, I know there was no saving the legs.’ And he said, ‘No,’” recalls Special Operations Forces fighter Dmytro Krasnovskyi about his first words after being wounded.

Both of Dmytro’s legs were amputated. Yet that did not stop him from fulfilling his dream — running a marathon. Together with his brother-in-arms Oleksandr Titenko, he completed the 42.195 km in a wheelchair.

IHOR KIRYANENKO

Ihor Kiryanenko, a doctor from Donetsk, was forced to remain on occupied territory, but even under those circumstances stayed loyal to Ukraine and began helping Ukrainian intelligence. In December 2018, he was detained by Russian militants.

Ihor endured seven years in captivity, subjected to torture, multiple injuries, knocked-out teeth, and broken bones. Despite pressure and inhuman conditions, he refused a Russian passport and rejected the “confessions” beaten out of him. During seven years in colonies and pre-trial detention, he preserved his human dignity, supported other prisoners, and never stopped believing he would return to Ukraine.

On August 15, 2025, he was finally released. His story has become a symbol of an unbreakable spirit in the face of the cruelest trials.

AUDIENCE CHOICE: RUSTY

Four months in Olenivka, one year in Taganrog, 45 days in Donetsk remand prison, one year in Makiyivka — behind these numbers and cities lie months of brutal interrogations, beatings, and torture endured by 26-year-old Azov fighter Dmytro, call sign Rusty.

Dmytro was 20 when he joined Azov reconnaissance. To get into the recon unit, he passed one of the toughest basic training courses. On April 15, he reached Azovstal — and from there went into captivity for two and a half years.

A year ago, Rusty returned home from captivity. In February of this year, hromadske shared his story while he was still undergoing rehabilitation. Now Dmytro has been back in service with his Azov for six months. He is a squad commander, trains the guys, goes on missions, and raises millions for his unit — by running.

hromadske is currently preparing a second story about Rusty — about his life one year after release from captivity and the inner drive that brought him back to service.