Denys Kotenko, a press officer with the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine, was killed in the battle for the village of Lukyanivka in the Kyiv region on March 24, 2022. Denys had been an ATO veteran, and he returned voluntarily to the army in the first days of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Denys Kotenko was born on May 18, 1996, in Dnipro. He went to the frontline for the first time in 2014 when he was only eighteen years old. Then, Denys suspended his studies at university, which he told his parents of only after he arrived at the training center of the Azov battalion.
“The enemy came to seize our land. My duty as a man and a warrior is to go and fight for my country. No matter how old you are: my friends and me, we made a decision to take up arms and go to the war,” Denys explained his motives then.
Thereafter, he participated in liberating Shyrokyne and Mariupol. In 2021, Kotenko returned to civilian life and started working at the Ministry for Veterans Affairs of Ukraine.
After Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Denys Kotenko stood up for the defense of his state once again.
He was buried in his hometown of Dnipro on March 31, 2022. Denys Kotenko was 25 years old. He had parents, a wife, and a 2-year-old son.
