🇺🇦 She went to the front following in the footsteps of her father, an Aidar battalion volunteer who was killed in action: the story of the Nykonenko family from Myrhorod.
Serhii Nykonenko was a man who had served in Afghanistan and, years later, could not stand aside when Russia attacked Ukraine.
He joined the Aidar Battalion as a volunteer.
In January 2015, near the village of Triokhizbenka, Russian forces shelled Ukrainian positions with Grad rockets. One of the rockets struck a school building where Serhii’s comrades were sheltering.
He threw himself over ammunition boxes, saving others, but died from his wounds.
His daughter, Yaroslava, grew up in Myrhorod. Energetic, responsible, and a natural leader at school.
She earned two university degrees and worked as an economist in Kyiv.
When the war began, she first volunteered alongside her father. After his death, she made a decision: she would follow his path.
Her journey was long. She trained at the Desna military training center, served in military intelligence with the Right Sector unit at the Butivka mine, and graduated from two sniper schools.
In 2018, she signed a contract with the Armed Forces of Ukraine. She initially served in the 101st Security Brigade of the General Staff but insisted on being transferred to the front line, joining the 28th Mechanized Brigade near Marinka.
There, on a position that no one wanted to occupy, she engaged in a week-long sniper duel with an enemy marksman at a distance of one kilometer.
Before her final mission, she said:
“Either I get him, or he gets me.”
On October 15, the enemy proved more accurate.
Yaroslava was 36 years old.
She left behind a 13-year-old daughter, as well as her mother and younger sister, Bohdana, who also chose a military career.
Yaroslava was buried in Myrhorod beside her father.
The Nykonenko family from Myrhorod is believed to be one of the first Ukrainian families in which both a father and his child were killed in the war against Russia.