In the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Kyiv teetered on the brink — and the fight to save the city came at a terrible cost. On the outskirts of the capital, the Hostomel Bridge had to be blown up to stop Russian troops pushing towards Kyiv, a mission that cost the two Ukrainian sappers their lives. Zakhar Kvasnyi, 22, and Roman Shymanskyi, 37, were killed as they carried out the demolition that helped stop the Russian advance. Today, their families and comrades are still fighting for proper recognition, pushing to reinstate the petitions to award them the title of Hero of Ukraine posthumously — and, at the very least, to place memorial markers at the site where they were killed.
Zakhar Kvasnyi (left) and Roman Shymanskyi (right)
Blitzkrieg on Kyiv
In February 2022, Kyiv became the epicentre of Putin’s blitzkrieg. Russian forces poured in along the shortest route, cutting through the abandoned Chornobyl zone, a no-man’s land with no defences. Their prime target was clear: Hostomel’s Antonov airport, the city’s vital air gateway. One of their first moves was audacious — a paratrooper drop aimed at taking the airfield. More than 200 helicopters carried hundreds of troops into the assault.
But a small band of Ukrainian defenders refused to back down. Against overwhelming odds, they shredded the Russian advance, destroying six helicopters — Mi-8s, Mi-28s, Ka-52s — along with over 20 armoured vehicles and a dozen other pieces of equipment. The fighting surged and stalled, lasting until 27 February. The runway was wrecked, stopping Russian Il-76 transport planes from bringing in reinforcements. By 25 February, Russian ground forces from Belarus reached the airport, but it was already a ruin. And in the chaos that followed on 27 February, the world’s largest plane, the An-225 Mriya, was lost forever.
On the night of 24–25 February, Kyiv faced a desperate situation. Russian forces had reached the town of Irpin by ground, and it quickly became clear there was no time to set up defensive positions. With tens of thousands of troops and vehicles pressing forward, the only option was to blow up the bridges across the Irpin River.
On 25 February 2022, three key crossings on Kyiv’s north-western approach were destroyed — the Romanivka Bridge on the Novo-Irpin highway, the bridge in Hostomel along the Warsaw highway, and another in Demydiv.
Lieutenant General Anatolii Barylevych, sent by Kyiv’s defence commander, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, to assess the situation, recalls the urgency: “This bridge, along with the others and the positions around it, was strategically vital… That’s why the order was to hold it at all costs and not let the Russians through.” Arriving on the evening of 24 February, Barylevych realised he had barely any personnel at his disposal — the bridge would have to be blown up. He called Syrskyi and requested explosives, and a truckload was sent immediately. The charges destroyed the far span of the bridge and the outer supports on the side held by the enemy, in Hostomel. The bridge was critically damaged and brought under Ukrainian fire control, buying precious time to slow down the Russian advance.
On 25 February 2022, Russian vehicles poured onto the Hostomel Bridge, advancing in a steady, almost parade-like column. A white jeep led the column, followed by a BTR-80 and a line of cargo vehicles carrying troops. Five or six vehicles made it through, while several dozen more stalled on the far side. As the column advanced and Russian forces eased their guard, Ukrainian defenders detonated the bridge and launched a counterattack.
Sappers who destroyed Hostomel Bridge
On 25 February 2022, a column of Russian forces pushing towards Kyiv was stopped at the Hostomel Bridge by around 20 sappers from Ukraine’s 70th Separate Regiment of the Support Forces. Two never returned: the commander, 22-year-old Senior Lieutenant Zakhar Kvasnyi from Kamianets-Podilskyi, and 37-year-old Junior Sergeant Roman Shymanskyi from Zhmerynka in Vinnytsia.
Oleksandr Dubchak, a squad commander involved in the operation, recalls the urgency of the moment. With the situation changing by the minute, it was crucial to preserve their small team while completing the mission.
The orders were simple: reach the Hostomel Bridge, blow it up, and stop the Russians from pushing into Kyiv. Russian forces were already positioned near Hostomel airport, while the last remaining Ukrainian columns made their way toward the capital.
In the early hours of 25 February, the sappers set out on a mission that would prove decisive. They reached the Hostomel Bridge around 7 a.m. and waited as the final Ukrainian forces cleared the area. Once the path was open, they went to work, tasked with mining and destroying the bridge to stop the advancing Russian troops in their tracks.
Squad commander Oleksandr Dubchak remembers it with stark clarity. “We got there, took a quick look at what we were dealing with — figured out where to lay the explosives, how much we’d need — and just got to work. Our commander, Senior Lieutenant Zakhar Kvasnyi, checked the site, drew up the plan, sorted all the technical bits, and we followed everything exactly as he said. We knew what we were doing; we’d done this before. The whole thing took maybe 20 minutes. We set enough explosives to knock the bridge out so heavy vehicles couldn’t get over. When it blew, the Russian column was basically cut in half. Later, from intercepted radio chatter, we learned it was Russian special forces, National Guard, police — several dozen vehicles, even trucks refitted to carry troops.”
Dubchak is clear about what might have happened if the bridge hadn’t been destroyed: Russian forces would have dug in on the far bank, clearing the way for mechanised columns, including tanks and armoured vehicles, to push straight into Kyiv. Instead, the demolition killed some of the troops and blocked their heavy armour. Around five enemy vehicles were destroyed outright, and on the Hostomel side, four or five more had their tyres shot out, leaving them immobile. In total, Ukrainian forces neutralised roughly a dozen enemy vehicles during the Hostomel Bridge operation.
“And that wasn’t the whole column,” says Oleksandr Dubchak. “The rest stayed further back and didn’t move forward. Russians retreated. There was panic. The explosion on the bridge happened after 7 a.m., and the supporting structures were destroyed. The pillars holding up the spans were demolished, and the bridge sagged. The explosives were placed near the pillars. After the bridge went up in the air, Zakhar and Roman, who had carried out the demolition, began to withdraw — but a fight broke out. The shattered column opened fire. And these were Russian special forces — people trained to handle weapons and fire with precision.”
Most of the enemy’s equipment and personnel were on the Hostomel side of the bridge, with a smaller contingent positioned near the dam toward the village of Horenka. Fire came from both directions. Dubchak says he doesn’t know which side fired the shots that hit Zakhar and Roman. “We watched them pull back under fire, sliding down the dam embankment toward villages controlled by Ukrainian forces. There was hope they’d make it to us — the terrain made it possible. A full platoon, around two dozen soldiers, carried out the operation. “Everything had to be coordinated. Not everyone stayed for the detonation — in the end, only the commander and one other were left to carry it out.”
The explosives were driven close to the bridge, but from there it was all done by hand — the slope down was too steep for vehicles, so they carried every charge themselves. Once the explosives were in place, the soldiers pulled back toward Kyiv. Everyone else was evacuated, leaving just two behind to set off the blast: the young commander Zakhar Kvasnyi and the seasoned sapper Roman Shymanskyi, who had volunteered for the job themselves.
Ukraine’s heroes must be honoured
At a memorial at the War Museum on 7 November 2025, Roman’s mother, Liudmyla Humeniuk, spoke of her son’s sacrifice: “My son signed up in 2006 and trained as a sapper. For us, the war started back in 2014 — he was near Donetsk, he went to Mariupol several times. On 24 February, he called me saying: ‘Mum, we’re heading out to defend Kyiv!’ That evening, his wife called and said if anything happened, I should contact Zakhar, because Roman had given her his number. And Zakhar had given his family Roman’s. After that, we never heard from them again. Roman left behind a wife and two sons. We want their father to be recognised as a Hero of Ukraine. He earned it, without a doubt.”
Zakhar’s mother, Zhanna Hozha, recounted the harrowing days that followed: “I have three children — my eldest is a daughter, and the boys are twins. My son Andrii is also in the military. It so happened that Zakhar was sent on this mission for the first time. He had served for nine months after graduating from the Petro Sahaidachnyi National Academy of Land Forces. When he arrived in Kyiv, he sent me a text: ‘We’ve arrived. We better get some rest now,’ just to reassure me. My husband said, ‘Why are you crying? This is Kyiv. Where’s the [Russian – ed.] border and where’s Kyiv?’ We had no idea the disaster that was coming.
We found Roma on 27 February, and Zakhar on 6 March in one of Kyiv’s morgues. We knew nothing — what was happening, where our children were. We asked someone for help, and they called me saying: ‘Zhanna, you can’t imagine how many boys we had to go through to find Zakhar!’”
Zhanna Hozha recalls visiting the rebuilt bridge twice, noting there’s no mention of its destruction or of those who gave their lives to save Kyiv: “We put flowers there, and a man walked by and asked, ‘Oh my, what happened? What’s up with the flowers?’ Time goes on, but it still hurts so much. Why did our children have to die? We’ve been waiting for two years for the petition to award them [the title of Hero of Ukraine, posthumously – ed.] the Order ‘For Courage,’ 3rd class?! My father died nine months after Zakhar, and seven months ago my husband passed away. It hurts deeply, but my dear child doesn’t let me rest!”
Liudmyla Humeniuk (centre) and Zhanna Hozha (right) at the War Museum in Kyiv during the event “Wounds of the Bucha Land,” 9 November 2025
