Serhii Shkvarenko, a serviceman of the 57th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, went to defend Ukraine in 2017. After the full-scale invasion, his wife was killed during the shelling of Volnovakha, and Serhii himself went missing after being seriously wounded in battles near Severodonetsk in June 2022... Recently it became known that Serhii is no longer among the living and his body was buried in Dnipro.
Born in Volnovakha
Serhii Shkvarenko was born on January 7, 1977, in Volnovakha, Donetsk region. He studied at secondary school No. 2. After finishing school and vocational training, he worked in the wheel shop of the Volnovakha wagon depot. The young man had no particular inclination towards military service and did not serve conscription.
"He was extremely hardworking and skilled with his hands. He renovated the house he bought with his wife himself," Serhii's friend Valerii Slobodianiuk tells Volnovakha.City journalists.
Valerii SlobodianiukФото: Волноваха.City
According to him, Serhii always paid attention to physical fitness – he exercised first at the sports hall of the Youth Sports School, and later at the sports hall of housing department No. 1 near the bus station. Following their father's example, his sons Artem and Mykyta were also involved in sports. They successfully participated in competitions and studied at the National University of Civil Defense of Ukraine – a leading institution of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.
"The parents were proud of their sons' achievements, encouraged them, supported them in every way, and attended events in which they participated," noted Valerii Slobodianiuk.
Serhii with his sons at the seashoreФото: Волноваха.City
The defender's combat path
In 2017, Serhii was called up to the Ukrainian Armed Forces through mobilization. Over time, he realized that he couldn't leave his brothers-in-arms because "someone has to defend the country." Shkvarenko continued to serve on a contract basis and received the rank of senior warrant officer.
"Serhii was an ordinary working man who had to become a soldier at a mature age. He was the commander of an SPG (heavy anti-tank grenade launcher) crew. During training, I tried to fire this Soviet contraption while lying down. I'll tell you, it's not easy. But over the years of service, Serhii became so skilled that he could hit a target from almost a kilometer away. He was proficient in work, in sports, and in defending his native land," Valerii Slobodianiuk says about his friend.
During phone conversations with his friend, the defender recalled his family trips to Crimea, dreamed about the future, about victory.
"Once during our conversation, I could hear the sounds of battle. At that very moment, Serhii said: 'Sorry, but I need to go to work, to shoot at the orcs' – and hung up the phone," Valerii recalls.
The friend noted the serviceman's extraordinary modesty: "At the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation, Serhii was wounded, but he didn't tell us anything about it. We found out about this incident from the command of the unit in which he served."
The tragedy in Volnovakha
The family tragedy occurred when Serhii was defending the country, and fierce battles were being fought for Volnovakha. The enemy was shelling the city with all possible weapons.
"I spoke on the phone with Iryna, Serhii's wife, on February 25, 2022, and likely on the 26th she was killed," says a friend of the deceased woman, whose name we are not disclosing for security reasons.
Mrs. Iryna, the wife of the Ukrainian defender, who was killed during the Russian invasion of VolnovakhaФото: Волноваха.City
"Ira was very worried because explosions were heard every second in the area of the geological exploration where they lived. She said that relatives had left, but she remained in the city with her sons. She said they had come out of the basement to eat something and were returning to the shelter again. The woman never contacted us again," the interviewee recalls.
Later it became known that as a result of a direct hit on the house, Iryna Shkvarenko died instantly. Her son Artem suffered a serious concussion, and the second son, Mykyta, sustained minor injuries. The body of the deceased woman was moved from the destroyed house to an outbuilding, but after a while that building was also hit. In those terrible days in Volnovakha, there was no peace for either the dead or the living.
Serhii's disappearance
Volnovakha defender Serhii Shkvarenko was seriously wounded in the head and chest during battles near Severodonetsk in early June 2022. He was evacuated from the battlefield and was supposed to be transported to a hospital in Dnipro. But he never arrived at the medical facility. The whereabouts of the serviceman were unknown for a long time.
According to updated information from Volnovakha.City, from Serhii's friend, Roman Bieletskyi, we learned that the body of the fallen defender was buried in 2022 in Dnipro.
Ruslana Kotliar, a resident of Vinnytsia who took guardianship of Serhii Shkvarenko's two sons, shared memories of searching for the defender:
"I'll start from the beginning: March 2022, there was a post on volunteer networks about help needed: two wounded boys from Volnovakha were being brought to Vinnytsia region, their mother was killed, their father was at war, help was needed. I took these boys and began caring for them, already having 4 daughters. I thank everyone who supported and helped then. In June 2022, their father went missing in the war, we looked for him for several years, there was silence (a year ago his unit called me to say he was missing in action).
On December 18, 2024, our lawyer called and said that through DNA provided by one of the sons, they found the father in the morgue in Dnipro. He had been buried back in 2022 as an unidentified soldier, in Dnipro...
You know, when I went to the morgue with the children to get the documents and saw 3 refrigerators storing the bodies of fallen soldiers, I thought I would die there – it's so terrible that your heart stops... My boys recognized their father from the photo, they understood it was him, although they didn't believe it! The next day we went to the cemetery, ordered a monument. And again the pain, because we saw the avenue of glory, thousands of unnamed, thousands identified... God, people, it's horrible. We found their father, life continues for my boys, but it ended for our heroes! Bow to them when possible, value your life, and pay respect to those who gave their lives! There are thousands of them, be worthy, not angry, not indifferent, but good Ukrainians! Take care of each other and remember that our elite gave their lives for us," said Ruslana.
Eternal bright memory to Serhii Shkvarenko! Volnovakha remembers its heroes.
"This material was published with the support of the Association 'Independent Regional Publishers of Ukraine' and Amediastiftelsen as part of the Regional Media Support Hub project. The views of the authors do not necessarily coincide with the official position of the partners."
