In 2014, he raised Russia's flag in Ukrainian Luhansk. In 2024, Moscow sent him to die wearing tourist sleeping mats as armor against Ukrainian combat drones.
Li Won Chol, also known as Herman Prokopiv, became the EU's first sanctioned individual for helping Russia create the "Luhansk People's Republic" (LNR). Together with Russian operatives, he seized government buildings and commanded mortar units using weapons that Moscow supplied. When shown videos of himself shelling Luhansk airport, he first claimed, "We had no mortars," then admitted being "an instructor."
A decade later, Russian forces found him hiding at construction sites in the same city, arrested him while pushing a baby stroller, and sent him on a suicide mission with 90 rounds of ammunition.
His childhood friend died during that final assault. Russian drone operators abandoned them under fire. Ukrainian forces found Li Won Chol unconscious in a trench, surrounded by corpses of previous assault groups, and offered him surrender – a chance his Russian commanders never meant to give.
"Make it like Moscow," he once dreamed about Luhansk. A decade later: "It differs quite significantly."