Originally published 2022-02-27.
Vitaliy Skakun was a 25-year-old combat engineer in Ukraine's marines. On 24 February 2022, the first day of Russia's full-scale invasion, he set explosives on a road bridge near the town of Henichesk, in Kherson Oblast, to stop a Russian tank column coming north from Crimea. There was no time to get clear, so he set off the charges while still on the bridge and was killed. Two days later President Volodymyr Zelensky posthumously made him a Hero of Ukraine.
His story became one of the first widely shared acts of sacrifice of the war. Here is what is known about him, the bridge and how his unit described his final minutes.
Who Vitaliy Skakun was
Skakun was born on 19 August 1996 in Berezhany, a small town in Ternopil Oblast in western Ukraine. He went to school there, trained as a welder at a vocational school in Lviv and later graduated from Lviv Polytechnic.
He joined the Ukrainian Navy and served as a seaman and combat engineer, or sapper, in the 35th Separate Marine Brigade, named after Rear Admiral Mykhailo Ostrogradsky. Military engineers in units like his are trained to lay and clear mines and to prepare bridges and roads for demolition, so an advancing enemy cannot use them. Wikipedia's profile of him records that he had one child.
His surname was spelled in several ways in early reports, including "Shakun" and "Skakun", and his first name appears as Vitaliy, Vitalii or Vitaly. Official Ukrainian sources use Skakun.
Why the Henichesk crossing mattered
Henichesk is a port town on the Sea of Azov, at the point where the sea meets the shallow Syvash lagoon. It sits on the narrow neck of land between Crimea and mainland Ukraine. Because the land around it is cut by water and salt marsh, the roads and bridges in the area are natural choke points.
When Russia invaded, one of its main thrusts came out of Crimea, which it had annexed in 2014. Columns of armour moved north across these crossings towards Kherson and beyond. Ukrainian marines stationed near the isthmus were among the first units to meet them. Destroying a bridge would not stop an army, but it could cost it hours and force it to look for another route.
What happened on the bridge
The account of his death comes from Ukraine's armed forces, who described it in a social media post on 25 February 2022. According to that statement, his battalion decided to blow up the road bridge to stop the advancing tank column, and Skakun volunteered to do it.
Fellow marines said he contacted them to say he was about to detonate the bridge, and an explosion followed immediately. The military's summary of the outcome was blunt: "The bridge was mined, but he did not have time to leave." It added that the demolition significantly slowed the enemy and gave his unit time to redeploy and organise its defence.
No independent footage of the moment has been published, and many details rest on his comrades' account. What is firmly documented is the official recognition that followed, and the fact that Russian forces captured Henichesk itself the same day.
Hero of Ukraine and other honours
On 26 February 2022, President Zelensky signed a decree awarding Skakun the title Hero of Ukraine, the country's highest honour, together with the Order of the Gold Star. The award was announced on the president's official website.
Other tributes followed quickly:
- On 28 February 2022, a district representative in Prague proposed naming a bridge near the Russian embassy after him; the district passed the idea on to the city council.
- On 1 March 2022 he was made an honorary citizen of his home town, Berezhany.
- On 7 March 2022 the Polish town of Leszno also granted him honorary citizenship.
- In April 2024 a street in Antonivka, near Kherson, was renamed Vitaly Skakun Street.
Kyiv in the first days of the war
Skakun's death was reported alongside dramatic scenes in the capital. On the evening of 25 February, Zelensky filmed a short video outside the presidential office in Kyiv with Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and senior aides, to show that the government had not fled. "We are all here," he said, before praising Ukraine's defenders. Early versions of this story wrongly attributed that video to former president Petro Poroshenko, who was also in Kyiv at the time and appeared in interviews holding a rifle.
Another famous line from those days is the reply Zelensky reportedly gave to a US offer of evacuation: "I need ammunition, not a ride." It was first reported by the Associated Press on 26 February 2022, citing a senior US intelligence official. For a long time neither the White House nor Zelensky's office confirmed it, and the Washington Post's fact checker called it unverified. Zelensky later referred to the exchange himself, in a 2023 documentary interview and again in a video address in February 2026, saying that was what he told the Americans.
The invasion did not go as Moscow planned
In the first week, many independent analysts concluded that Russia had expected a quick collapse of Ukrainian resistance and a fast capture of Kyiv. Instead, its forces met stubborn defence, suffered heavy losses and became bogged down on several fronts. Within weeks, Russian troops had withdrawn from the area around the capital.
The south was different. Advancing from Crimea, Russian forces seized Henichesk on the first day and took the city of Kherson in early March. Since November 2022, after Ukraine liberated Kherson city, the Russian-installed administration of the region has used Henichesk as its base. Analysts at the time warned that setbacks on the ground could lead to heavier air and missile strikes on cities, and that fear was borne out as the war went on.
Why his story still resonates
Skakun's death came in the confused first hours of a war that has since cost many thousands of lives. For Ukrainians, it captured the spirit of those days: ordinary young people taking extraordinary risks to slow a much larger army. His name now appears on a street sign, in a presidential decree and in his home town's list of honorary citizens, ensuring that one bridge on the edge of Crimea is remembered for more than its strategic value.
Sources: President of Ukraine: President awarded Vitalii Skakun the title of Hero of Ukraine (26 February 2022); Wikipedia: Vitalii Skakun; Wikipedia: Henichesk; Wikipedia: I need ammunition, not a ride. The story was first reported here from Daily Mail coverage in February 2022, based on a statement by Ukraine's armed forces.
COMMENTS