“The title of Hero of Ukraine was awarded to four Ukrainians, including politician Andrey Parubiy, writer Vladimir Vakulenko, soldier Gennady Afanasyev and activist Stepan Chubenko”, – WRITE: www.radiosvoboda.org
The relevant decree was published on the Presidential Office website.
Also, other decrees the title of Hero of Ukraine was awarded to a senior soldier Gennady Afanasyev, writer, translator, public figure Volodymyr Vakulenko and public activist Stepan Chubenko.
On August 30, Andrei Parubiy – a participant in the Revolution of Dignity, Politics, People’s Deputy, Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada from 2016 to 2019 was shot in Lviv. On September 18, the Verkhovna Rada called on the President to assign him to posthumously the title of Hero of Ukraine.
The name of the photographer and lawyer from Simferopol Gennady Afanasyev became widely known after he became involved in the Crimean Terrorists. In 2014, he opposed the Russian annexation of Crimea, after which he was detained in Simferopol by FSB staff on charges of preparing terrorist attacks. He spent 767 days in prison. After his release from Russian imprisonment in 2016-2018, Gennady Afanasyev was the author of the project of Radio Liberty Crimea.
At the end of December 2022 it became known that Afanasiev was killed in the Luhansk region. He fought in the 130th battalion of the Troy 241st Brigade of the Armed Forces. Afanasiev went to the military enlistment office on the first day of a full -scale Russian military invasion of Ukraine. In May, MPs called on to assign him the title of Hero of Ukraine.
Also read: The police told the details of the murder of the writer Vakulenko and three more civilians in Izium
Volodymyr Vakulenko is the author of more than a dozen books, including children’s, an active participant in the Dignity Revolution and a volunteer.
The murder of the writer Vladimir Vakulenko became known to the Russian military after the liberation of Kharkiv region. In November 2022, his ex-wife, Irina Novitskaya, reported that DNA expertise allowed Vakulenko’s remains.