"That's it, guys, this is death". Zelensky awards two teenagers killed by Russians in Berdiansk

16-year-old Tigran Hovhannisyan and Nikita Khaganov, who were killed by Russians in the temporarily occupied Berdiansk on June 24, 2023, were posthumously awarded the Order of Freedom. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed the relevant decree.

Despite the occupation of the city in 2022, the teenagers stayed in Berdiansk. Hovhannisyan actively expressed his pro-Ukrainian position, which is why he was repeatedly subjected to pressure from the occupiers. He was kidnapped from his home where he lived with his grandmother, tortured, including with electric shocks, and mocked up for execution. The boy was arrested by Russian gauleiters.

Nikita Khanganov also did not hide his pro-Ukrainian position. In October 2022, they tried to arrest him, interrogated him together with his father, and later began fabricating a case of alleged sabotage on the railroad and conducting searches at his home. The case against the teenager was being prepared for trial and it was planned to imprison him for up to 20 years.

The boys were friends. The Russians killed them on June 23, 2023, the President's Office said. After that, a video of the boys' last words was posted online: "That's it, this is death, guys. Goodbye, guys. Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!".

Two years after the murders, Russians have not handed over the bodies of the victims to their families.

• on July 8, a fallen Azov soldier Nazariy Hryntsevych "Hrinka" was awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine. He was one of the defenders of Mariupol and the youngest among the Azov soldiers there. Hryntsevych was killed in action on May 6, 2024, in the Luhansk sector in the Serebryansky forest.