01 October 2026
(IMAGE: Intent)
"Dmytro Pushkarenko calmly asked, 'Are we going to take out that little tank?'" recalls his comrade Serhiy Filonenko. "He climbed out and took it down with his very first shot. He was a natural-born grenade launcher operator."
Intent continues its series of articles about fallen defenders, “Heroes Never Die.”
Dmytro Serhiyovych Pushkarenko, a soldier in the 3rd Company of the 123rd Brigade of the Territorial Defense Forces, was killed by enemy fire on October 22, 2022, in the village of Novopoltavka during the liberation of the Kherson region. His mother, Nadiya Vasylivna, and his comrade-in-arms, Serhiy Filonenko, spoke about his life, his passion for sports, his talent as an assault soldier, and his plans to get married.
“We had a large farm in the Mykolaiv region,” says Nadiya Vasylivna. “Dmytro always had plenty to do from childhood on. He helped take care of the livestock and everything else. He was independent, learned to cook at an early age, and his food was delicious. Sometimes I’d just be thinking about what to feed the family, and he’d call out from the kitchen, ‘Mom, I’ve already cooked everything.’ And in the army, I know he did the same for his fellow soldiers.”
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PHOTO provided by the interviewees
They had a great volleyball team at school. Dmytro was lucky to be tall—186 centimeters. They traveled to competitions and played against other schools.
Dima even set up a gym at home and worked out there. He was very athletic, lean, and strong. And, thankfully, he didn’t have any bad habits.
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PHOTO provided by interviewees
Dima helped out on our farm, and he also traveled around Ukraine with friends to work on construction projects. They had projects in Kyiv and in Odesa.
And when the full-scale invasion began, their entire crew went to the military registration and enlistment office.”
“We met in the army, on the night of February 24–25,” says his comrade-in-arms Serhiy Filonenko. “We were assigned to the 123rd Mechanized Brigade, and then underwent assault trooper training in Mykolaiv. It turned out that Dmytro had a talent for the grenade launcher. We spent three days on grenade launcher training. About twenty of us were firing, but no one else achieved such results. Mitka hit the target all seven times out of seven attempts. The instructors told him right away: ‘There’s nothing left to teach you—you were born for this.’ You really had to have strength for that—it’s not like shooting an automatic rifle.
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PHOTO provided by interviewees
After training and coordination, our assault company, part of the 59th Brigade, liberated the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, including the towns of Ternovi Pody, Kotlyareve, and Barvinkove.
Near Barvinkove, Mitka took out a Russian tank with his very first shot in combat. The enemy was across the canal. We couldn’t launch a proper assault because they had a tank.
Dima was calm and brave— a true assault soldier. He asked, “Are we going to take out that tank?” He loaded his RPG and crawled closer to the tank. He got within about 60 meters and hit the tank. It started to flee. Mitka fired at it a second time—and hit it again. Then our tank crews finished it off.
And then our assault platoon—about fourteen soldiers—managed to cross the canal. We drove out the enemy and took their positions. The next day, the Russians came to retake the position—there were sixty of them. And Mitka, firing his grenade launcher at their clusters, prevented them from advancing.
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PHOTO provided by interviewees
But the Russians kept shelling that position constantly afterward. We had wounded; Dmytro and others were concussed. I carried out the wounded, while Mitka carried both his RPG and my machine gun—he was a burly guy.
After that, we went for medical treatment, and then took up positions in the Kherson region, in Novopoltavka. I went home for a short break. “Go ahead, you won’t be there long,” Dmytro told me.
Then he was supposed to go on leave. Dima had already bought a suit because he was planning to propose to and marry his comrade’s daughter—Katya Koba.
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PHOTO provided by interviewees
Mitya and his comrades lived in one house, while the StarLink was in another. No matter how much they tried to hide it, the enemy spotted it and, unfortunately, shelled them with artillery that morning.
Dmytro was a wonderful soldier—brave and dependable. He was a friendly and fair-minded person. We even got to spend time together in our daily lives. He could have done the army a lot more good and destroyed many enemy tanks. Russian equipment would have gone up in flames. Dmitro fought like a true hero.”
“When Dmytro was in the army, he looked out for all of us,” adds Nadiya Vasylivna. “My son knew how worried his father, his sister, and I were about him. He didn’t say a word, even when he was first admitted to the hospital with a concussion: ‘Everything will be fine, Mom, don’t worry—I’m doing my job.’ He’s a true hero to us because he stood up to defend our country and all of us.”
Антон Терехов