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Could it be that somehow Valery Hierovkin sensed what was coming? That the young Ukrainian foot soldier felt there was a sniper round with his name on it?
His father Yevgeny, a pastor, believes the answer lies in a prophetic TikTok video Valery made on his final visit home in November.
He plays the video on his phone and images of his eldest son flick past – always sombre, always in uniform – set to a haunting song about heartache and absence. “I don’t believe you are gone,” says the lyric.
“Sometimes I feel perhaps Valery was expecting to die,” his father tells me, “because he spent the last two days of his holiday with us, and he made that video.
“When he was boarding the bus, he said ‘I have a heavy heart, I don’t want to leave’, but I said, ‘Son, you have to. You made the decision, so you have to go’.”
Weeks later, on 1 December, Valery Hierovkin was shot dead by Russian-backed separatists on a frontline in Eastern Ukraine.
A sniper round pierced his helmet. He had been making plans for life after the army and wanted to go to college back home. Instead, his life was cut short at 22.
While Nato worries about a possible Russian invasion of Ukraine, Valery fought and died in the war that is already under way and has claimed around 14,000 lives, both soldiers and civilians.
It began in March 2014 when Russia annexed Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula after a pro-Russian government was overthrown in Kyiv.
Then Russian-backed separatist rebels seized parts of the east. The conflict continues at a low flame, despite a ceasefire. Valery was one of 65 Ukrainian soldiers killed in the past 12 months.
I met his grieving parents in a former kindergarten turned Evangelical Church surrounded by towering Soviet-era apartment blocks. They are quick to explain that the occasional distant thuds we hear are coming from factory production lines.
These days the city of Kramatorsk is peaceful. It wasn’t always.
Anna Hierovkina radiates warmth, though she is wrapped in grief.
Her slight frame is buttressed by her broad-shouldered husband, sitting right by her side. By turns one speaks and the other comforts with a touch of the hand. They are bound together by love and by loss.
“Every parent thinks their child is the best, and we had been impatiently waiting for him,” she says, her face lighting up at the memory.
“As a child he was very funny, and a bit naughty but a pretty kind boy. He was very active and keen on football. He was like everybody else, but we cherished him. For us he was the best son.”
As a teenager Valery wasn’t playing war games on his computer. He was living through the real thing. Kramatorsk was occupied by pro-Russian forces for three months in 2014 and shelled in 2015.
“From that time he wanted to defend his motherland,” Anna tells me.
“He wanted to volunteer at 15. After finishing school, the thought never left him. When he got the chance to join the army, he signed up. That was his will, and as parents we supported him. Of course, we did not think it would turn out this way,” she says, tears spilling from her eyes.
Anna takes consolation in why her son died. “I am proud of my son because he gave his life for his country,” she says. “He gave his life for Ukraine, for the people, and for his family. That’s why I am proud of my boy.”
Kramatorsk is proud, too. Valery Hierovkin was given a hero’s funeral with military honours in the main square.
Mourners placed red carnations in the open coffin. His brothers-in-arms lined up to hug his mother. Some knelt on icy ground as his remains were carried away by troops in camouflage uniform.
War is not abstract here, and locals know there may be worse to come.
Yevgeny is bracing for Russia’s next move. “I’m not panicking. Am I scared? I think everyone is scared,” he says.
“You don’t know what’s coming, but the next phase of the war, if it happens, won’t be like 2014. Everything will be much more serious and frightening.”
The much-feared and much-forecast invasion may never come. Russia may extract concessions from Nato and the West without putting one more boot on frozen Ukrainian soil.
There may not be another Crimea, or an assault on Kyiv. Perhaps this is all high-stakes shadow boxing in the snow.
But for Yevgeny and Anna, the worst has already happened. They have lost a beloved son. And there are plenty of shattered families across Eastern Ukraine. Valery Hierovkin is one fallen soldier among many.
