The President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky posthumously awarded the former Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Andriy Parubiy, who was killed in Lviv on August 30.

Other recipients of the title include:

• Gennady Afanasyev — an activist who resisted the Russian occupation of Crimea, a political prisoner, killed in 2022 near Bilohorivka;
• Stepan Chubenko — a schoolboy tortured and shot by pro-Russian militants in 2014 in occupied Donetsk;
• Volodymyr Vakulenko — a poet and children's writer, killed by Russians in May 2022 during the occupation of Izium.

The president announced this in his address.

«These were exceptional individuals. They were defenders of the idea of Ukraine and our independence. Their lives were diverse, coming from different parts of our country — Lviv, Crimea, Donetsk, and Kharkiv. Yet each of them now represents a Ukraine that has shown character and resilience against Russia,» he wrote.

He also reported that since the beginning of the full-scale war, the highest title of Hero of Ukraine has been awarded only to soldiers — Ukrainians who have distinguished themselves in combat conditions, defending the state, our positions, and our people. A total of 722 such soldiers have become Heroes of Ukraine, with 445 awarded posthumously.