Tigran Hovhannisyan and Nikita Khanganov received the Orders of Freedom posthumously

Friends Tigran Hovhannisyan and Mykyta Khanganov remained in temporarily occupied Berdyansk, but they did not hide their pro-Ukrainian position — for this the teenagers were subjected to bullying:

Tigran Hovhannisyan was abducted from the house where he lived with his grandmother, subjected to torture and abuse, including electric shock and simulated execution, and arrested by representatives of the occupation authorities. Nikita Khanganov was interrogated together with his father, and later they began fabricating a case of alleged sabotage on the railway and conducting house searches. The case against the boy was being prepared for trial and it was planned to sentence him to 20 years in prison.

On June 23, 2023, the occupiers killed the teenagers — their last words were "Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!" The fallen friends were posthumously awarded the Order of Freedom:

The occupiers accused the boys of anti-Russian activities and claimed that they were allegedly preparing sabotage on the Melitopol railway. The boys faced up to 20 years in prison. The accusation was preceded by mockery, detention, and brutal torture of the children and their relatives.

On June 15, 2023, the European Parliament demanded that the Russian authorities stop the trial against Tigran Hovhannisyan and Nikita Khanganov and allow them to leave for Ukrainian-controlled territory. However, there was no response to this call.

The boys spent the last days of their lives in hiding, but when they returned home, an investigator came to them with an armed escort and had a long conversation with Tigran, but then the teenagers managed to escape. On the day of the murder, the boys were in the occupation police.

The Verkhovna Rada Commissioner for Human Rights, Dmytro Lubinets, stated that he treats the murder of two underage boys in Berdyansk as an extrajudicial execution.