On the Day of Remembrance of the Heroes of Kruty, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy paid tribute to those who held back the Bolshevik advance on Kyiv on January 29, 1918. The ceremony took place near the memorial cross dedicated to the Heroes of Kruty at Askold's Grave in Kyiv.
After the ceremony, the Head of State spoke with Liliya Averyanova, the mother of the fallen Hero of Ukraine, fighter pilot Andrii Pilschykov (callsign "Juice"), near St. Nicholas Church at Askold's Grave.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy honored the memory of Andrii Pilschykov, as well as Mark Paslavskyi, who was killed in August 2014 during the battle of Ilovaisk; Oleksandr Klitynskyi, a participant in the Revolution of Dignity who died in the fire at the Trade Unions Building in February 2014; Dmytro Kotsiubailo (callsign "Da Vinci"), Hero of Ukraine and commander of the assault battalion "Da Vinci Wolves," who was killed in March 2023 near Bakhmut; and Pavlo Petrychenko, a civic activist and warrior of the 59th Separate Assault Brigade named after Yakiv Handziuk, who was killed last April while carrying out a combat mission in the Donetsk region.
