1996–2022
Vitalii Skakun
Marine combat engineer
A welder who had worked in Poland and studied software engineering became a combat engineer in the marines. On the first day of the full-scale war, Sailor Vitalii Skakun volunteered to blow up a bridge near Henichesk to hold back a Russian tank column, and was killed. Hero of Ukraine (posthumously).
Key accomplishments
- Combat engineer in the engineering and demolition section of the 35th Separate Marine Brigade (from 2020)
- Served on combat missions in eastern Ukraine during the Joint Forces Operation
- On 24 February 2022 volunteered to mine and blow up the road bridge between Henichesk and the Arabat Spit, slowing a Russian tank column
- Hero of Ukraine (posthumously, decree No. 74/2022 of 26 February 2022)
Welder, coder, combat engineer
Vitalii Skakun was born in 1996 in Berezhany, a town in the Ternopil region of western Ukraine. He trained as a welder in Lviv, then worked in the Polish town of Leszno while studying software engineering at Lviv Polytechnic. In November 2019 he signed up with the Ukrainian army. He trained as a combat engineer (a sapper, who lays and clears explosives) in Kamianets-Podilskyi, and from 2020 served in the engineering section of the 35th Marine Brigade. His comrades knew him by the call sign “Baton”. Even before the full-scale war he served on combat missions in the Donbas.
The bridge at Henichesk
Henichesk, in the Kherson region, sits right next to Crimea. On 24 February 2022, the first day of the full-scale invasion, Vitalii’s unit was holding a position near the isthmus that links Crimea to the mainland. That day he volunteered to mine and blow up the road bridge between Henichesk and the Arabat Spit to hold back a Russian tank column. The blast slowed the column considerably, and the Ukrainian troops had time to regroup and set up a defence.
Sailor Vitalii Skakun was killed blowing up the bridge near Henichesk. He was 25.
How he is remembered
Just two days later, on 26 February 2022, he was posthumously made a Hero of Ukraine. He was buried in his home town of Berezhany. He is an honorary citizen of Berezhany and of Leszno in Poland, where he once worked. Berezhany issued a postage stamp with his portrait, the Lviv vocational school where he studied put up a memorial plaque, and streets bear his name in Kyiv, Mukachevo, Berezhany, Kostiantynivka and Antonivka in the Kherson region.
