Rohoza (Дев'ятий) Mykhailo 🇺🇦🇱🇹🇨🇦@Oct7NeverForget
Pavlo Didenko, callsign “Zviribiy” (“St. John’s Wort”), destroyed 18 Russian tanks, survived the Ilovaisk encirclement, and had a $30,000 bounty placed on his head. He dreamed of building a house by a pond where friends would gather to fish on weekends. Instead, he gave his life for Ukraine.
He did not go to war immediately. During the Maidan protests in 2013, he wanted to join, but at home his infant daughter was waiting for him. His wife, Svitlana — whom he lovingly called “Kvitulia” — convinced him to stay.
But on August 19, 2014, he volunteered for the Armed Forces of Ukraine because he simply could not do otherwise.
Over 11 years of war, he survived the Ilovaisk pocket, spending ten days encircled by enemy forces. He fought in Debaltseve, Pisky, Mariupol, Pavlopil, and Sorokyne — always where the fighting was fiercest. He became a special reconnaissance soldier and chief sergeant of the 1st Reconnaissance Company of Ukraine’s 130th Recon Battalion.
Russian forces first offered $25,000, then $30,000 for his capture. But a warrior’s soul cannot be bought.
His famous callsign came almost by accident. Once, while gathering St. John’s wort flowers for tea, he came under enemy fire. Everyone escaped except him. When he eventually returned, his comrades joked: “Zviribiy came back! So, did you at least collect enough herbs for tea?” “No,” he replied. “I lost them.”
Even before the full-scale invasion, Pavlo had personally destroyed 18 enemy tanks and an ammunition depot holding 20 tons of shells — in a single night.
He survived assassination attempts, severe concussions, and serious brain vessel damage. Doctors repeatedly tried to remove him from service, but he refused to stay home.
He told his wife: “How can I sit at home when I drive past those black-and-white portraits of fallen boys who never even had a family or children?”
Near the end, though, exhaustion finally caught up with him. He promised Svitlana: “One last trip. I’ll hand everything over and finally come home.”
A week before his death, he led his comrades out of a near encirclement. Calling his wife afterward, he sounded almost like a joyful child: “Kvitulia, do you know how much God loves me? Rain poured like a wall. The drones couldn’t fly, they never saw us, and we brought everyone out — even the equipment.”
A week later, on July 9, 2025, while evacuating the bodies of fallen soldiers, he went back once more to save others — and never returned.
That morning he missed their daily 9 a.m. phone call for the first time. At first, friends said he was simply on a mission. Later came the news no one wanted to believe.
His wife prayed for more than a month before finally being called to identify his body in Dnipro.
At his funeral on August 22, a three-kilometer convoy escorted the fallen Hero.
When Svitlana still did not know how to tell the children, five-year-old Tymofiy suddenly asked: “Mom… is Dad gone?”
She answered: “Children, your father became an angel.”
But the boy shook his head: “No. Dad became a stork. A stork walked around Grandma’s yard all day today.”
Later he asked: “Mom, can I call every stork ‘Dad’?”
Pavlo left behind his wife, three children, and one simple dream — to gather all his loved ones around one table to celebrate Ukraine’s victory.
He never got to see that day. But his family promised they would celebrate it for him.
Rest in peace, Stork. You fulfilled your duty. 😢
