We were driving through Kyiv when Oleksandr told me the story.
Traffic moved slowly. Ordinary life unfolded outside the window, cafés open, people crossing streets, winter light resting on old buildings. A city functioning. A city carrying something heavy.
I see a large banner and ask about it. He mentioned “the Hundred”. At first, I thought he meant a military unit. Some specific formation. A call sign. But it wasn’t that.
He explained that in Ukrainian history, warriors were organized into sotnias, units of roughly one hundred men. Cossack formations. Brotherhoods bound by duty and defense. The number itself became symbolic: not just a headcount, but a structure of belonging.
Then came the reference to the Revolution of Dignity, when around one hundred protesters were killed. They became known as the “Heavenly Hundred”. Not simply victims, but defenders. A sacred company.
And now, during this war, the meaning has deepened. When a soldier falls, some say he “joins the Hundred”.
It is not an official term. Not a formal legion. It’s cultural. Almost spiritual. A way to frame loss inside continuity. The dead are not erased. They are absorbed into a lineage of defenders stretching backward through Cossack history and forward into memory.
There was no drama in how Oleksandr told it. Just matter-of-fact. As if explaining something obvious. In a country at war, language evolves. It finds ways to hold grief without collapsing under it.
The fallen are not dead, they join the eternal company of Ukraine’s defenders.