President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska presented children with the new award "The Future of Ukraine" for the first time.
This was reported by the press service of the Office of the President of Ukraine.
The children who received the award survived occupation, deportation, loss of relatives, provided assistance to the victims, and also support Ukrainian soldiers and volunteer.
This year the award was received by:
- 16-year-old Dmytro Amalsky from the Mykolaiv region, who pulled his nine-year-old brother out of the flames during a house fire, handed him over to his mother, and tried to put out the fire himself;
- eight-year-old Zakhar Babak from Lutsk. After his military father was captured, Zakhar has been participating in weekly actions with his mother in support of captured and missing soldiers for 22 consecutive months;
- 14-year-old Andriy Balabanov, 11-year-old Nazar Donets, and 14-year-old Artem Shemyhon from the Kharkiv region, who helped a man who had fallen under the ice get out of the water before rescuers arrived;
- 11-year-old Marharyta Hariaha, who survived the bombing of her house in Mariupol, which killed nine of her family members. Rescuers were able to help the girl, her mother, and neighbors only because Marharyta called for help from under the rubble;
- 16-year-old Adriana Hoy from the Khmelnytskyi region, who resuscitated a two-year-old boy who had been in a traffic accident before the arrival of doctors. Thanks to this, he was saved and taken to the hospital in stable condition;
- 17-year-old Ilya Zavalnyi in the Zhytomyr region used branches to save his friend who had fallen through the ice. There was no one nearby, so the boy provided all the necessary assistance on his own;
- 13-year-old Kyrylo Ilyashenko, who saved passengers from a bus that caught fire after being hit by Russian missiles on April 13 of this year. Despite being hit in the head by three pieces of shrapnel, he broke a window, got out of the bus, and helped others.
- 15-year-old boxer Mark Komarov from Enerhodar (Zaporizhzhia region), who refused to compete for Russia in sports competitions while under occupation;
- Eight-year-old Diana Kostyrya, who sang the Ukrainian anthem during her stay in the Kherson region under occupation, hung Ukrainian flags and her drawings with national symbols on her house every day, and hid everything when she heard that the Russian occupiers were coming;
- 16-year-old Olha Laktionova from the Kherson region, who rescued a girl drowning under the ice from the Inhulets River;
- Two teenagers from the Rivne region – 15-year-old Maksym Myronets and 14-year-old Pavlo Podvyshenny – despite the strong current, were able to rescue a drowning woman from the water and, together with their friends, called doctors and police;
- 15-year-old Kira Obedynska and 14-year-old Oleksandr Radchuk, who survived deportation from Mariupol, lost their relatives, but found the strength to testify about Russiaʼs crimes on international platforms;
- 14-year-old Kostyantyn Orekhov from the Kyiv region, who in 2022 saved his sister and grandfather after a Russian missile hit their house;
- 16-year-old Tymofiy Poteryailo from Dnipro, who helped victims and rescuers at the sites of missile strikes, pulled an almost unconscious woman out from under the glass, and also played the bandura to raise money to support Ukrainian soldiers;
- 17-year-old Ilona Tarasova, who from the first days of the occupation of the village in the Kharkiv region, despite the risk to her life, passed on information about the enemyʼs movements to the Ukrainian defenders;
- 16-year-old Kyrylo Shavkun, who rescued people from the water in a boat after the explosion of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power station. Despite the threats of the occupiers, the boy convinced his peers not to betray Ukraine.
"You are our future. I am very proud that we have such children, children with such values, with such a sense of what is right. I would like to thank you for your actions, for your courage, and most importantly, for your concern," President Zelensky noted at the award ceremony.
Due to a large-scale air raid alert across the country, the awards ceremony continued under cover.
The "Future of Ukraine" award is a new award that Zelensky approved by his decree on May 29, 2025. In the future, the presentation of this award will become a tradition.
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