A monument to Hero of Ukraine Pavlo Petrychenko was unveiled in Kyiv
A monument to Pavlo Petrychenko—a fallen defender, volunteer, and Hero of Ukraine—was unveiled at Askold’s Grave in Kyiv. His family, friends, comrades, and colleagues gathered for the ceremony.
The monument was created by sculptor Mykola Bilyk.
He created an intricate Cossack cross, hand-carved from granite in the Ukrainian ornamental tradition.
The monument also features the military trident of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and a graphic engraving of Pavlo Petrychenko’s face.
As Daria Hirna noted, Mykola Bilyk’s works are also installed on the graves of prominent Ukrainian dissidents and figures of the national revival—Vasyl Stus, Alla Horska, and Ivan Svitlychny.
Civic activist Yuliy Morozov highlighted the symbolism of erecting the monument to Petrychenko at the same time as the return to Ukraine and reburial of Colonel Yevhen Konovalets.
“Two new crosses were erected today in Ukraine, and to me this seems very symbolic. There are just over 100 years between their birthdays. Both were killed by Russia. But their heroism kept the flame of the Ukrainian struggle alive. And it will continue to do so. And if Konovalets meets Pasha somewhere out there in the afterlife and asks him in which regions he effectively destroyed the enemy, and he replies that he fought his last battle near Krasnohorivka in the Donetsk region, then Yevhen will probably smile with satisfaction and say, ‘It’s good to see the guys have made such progress,’” Morozov wrote.
Pavlo Petrychenko’s sister, Marina, emphasized that the monument should serve as a reminder of the high price of freedom.
“May this stone cross remind both us and future generations that freedom is never given for free. The price paid for it is far too high, and our family gave up the most precious thing we had. Pasha loved Ukraine above all else; he sought justice and true freedom... Remember him,” she wrote.
The Serhiy Prytula Charitable Foundation also noted that Pavlo Petrychenko will forever remain part of the team and an example of a person who worked devotedly for the Ukrainian military.
Pavlo Petrychenko was a graduate of the Vadym Hetman Kyiv National Economic University; prior to the start of the full-scale invasion, he actively participated in the Euromaidan and the “Who Ordered the Killing of Kateryna Handziuk?” initiative.
In March 2022, he joined the effort to establish Serhiy Prytula’s volunteer center, and in April, he enlisted in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Petrychenko served as a junior sergeant and aerial reconnaissance specialist with the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade. Even while in the military, he continued his civic activism.
In March 2024, Petrychenko authored a petition to restrict the operations of online casinos, which gathered over 25,000 signatures in less than a day.
On November 11, 2022, he also set up one of the first Starlink terminals on Freedom Square in liberated Kherson.
Pavlo Petrychenko was killed on April 15, 2024, in the Donetsk region while carrying out a combat mission.
The hero was buried in Kyiv at Askold’s Grave, where a monument has now been erected in his honor.
This was reported by Daria Hirna, director of the Center for Research on the Liberation Movement, and the soldier’s sister, Marina Petrychenko.
As a reminder, the monument, which had stood for 87 years on Yevhen Konovalets’ grave in Rotterdam, was transported to his native village of Zashkiv in Lviv Oblast.
