On Christmas night, December 25, 2022, four Ukrainian volunteer fighters were killed while carrying out a combat mission in Russia’s Bryansk region. Their names are now etched into Ukraine’s modern history: Yurii “Sviatosha” Horovets, Bohdan “Apollo” Liahov, Maksym “Nepyipivo” Mykhailov, and Taras “Tarasii” Karpiuk.
They were all awarded the title Hero of Ukraine, the country’s highest state honor. Each of them chose a path that demanded absolute resolve—and paid for it with his life.
In a reflection published years later, Oleksandr Liahov, the father of Bohdan “Apollo” Liahov, described the final photograph of the four men. His words capture a moment stripped of theatrics and mythology—a moment of calm before irrevocable action.
It is not heroism performed for an audience, he writes, but the silence of decision. A state in which doubt disappears, emotions fall away, and only purpose remains.
The men knew they were surrounded. They knew there would be no retreat. They did not surrender their weapons. They fought until the end.
On Apollo’s shoulder patch was the phrase Molon Labe—“Come and take it.” Not as a slogan, but as a way of being. A refusal to yield, regardless of odds. A choice to defend what is yours, even at the cost of your life.
They were not seekers of fame. They did not romanticize war. For them, Ukraine was not an abstraction, but a home—something living, irreplaceable, and worth everything.
Their last moments were not filled with speeches or noise. Just music in headphones. A steady, wordless sound like winter wind through a forest. Then silence.
They walked into the Christmas night so that others could wake to morning.
They remain in formation.
They remain in memory.
