Ivan V. Savko (Bars)

28-year-old soldier Ivan Savko (call sign Bars) was killed on September 16, 2022, during an assault by Ukrainian forces in the Kherson direction. The defender sustained fatal injuries during shelling near the village of Pravdine. Ivan was born in the town of Apostolove in the Dnipropetrovsk region. He received a secondary technical education at a local vocational school. In his free time, he loved to play football. Later, he moved to Kyiv and worked as a head chef in one of the establishments. During the full-scale war, he defended Ukraine as part of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade named after the Knights of the Winter Campaign. He was a driver in the engineering and sapper platoon. "Vanya is invaluable to us. He is a bright and kind person! Very sociable, warm-hearted, brave, and positive. He never showed that he was struggling; on the contrary, he supported and helped everyone. We only learned after his death what tasks he performed, how everyone respected him and still respects him, how he was valued. He never told us anything, saying that everything was fine. We did not know that they were going on the assault. He carried out all orders from the command with dignity. We are very proud of him. It is very hard without Vanya. He is our Hero and will forever be in our hearts!" said the defender's sister, Alona. "He should have had more time to live — to dream, build, create, love, but the unjust and hateful war took the hero away forever. We will remember every life taken, and we will take revenge on the enemy for every Ukrainian warrior! Heroes do not die! Eternal glory and eternal memory to our defender," said the head of the Kryvyi Rih district military administration, Yevhen Sytnychenko. The serviceman was buried in the village of Ukraina in the Dnipropetrovsk region. Ivan is survived by his mother Alla, brother Oleksandr, sister Alona, and son Volodymyr.