In NIZHYN, Ukraine, a Ukrainian soldier who was awarded a medal posthumously after a video circulated widely showing him declaring “Glory to Ukraine” before appearing to be shot dead, was honored with a statue in his hometown in the north on Saturday.
The video, shared in March, depicted a man later identified by the military as Oleksandr Matsievskiy, a sniper from the Chernihiv region, saying “Slava Ukraini,” a phrase that has become a popular expression of resistance to Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
In the video, Matsievskiy, standing in a wooded area, smoking a cigarette, and without visible weapons, is then seen falling to the ground, apparently being repeatedly shot by unseen gunmen.
Kyiv and Matsievskiy’s mother Paraska Demchuk, 68, blamed his death on the “brutal and brazen” Russians. Demchuk expressed pride as she showed the medal bestowed on her son by President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, representing the “Hero of Ukraine” honor.
“He would have taken all of them with him if he had a grenade,” she said, “He would say to me, ‘Mum, I will never let them capture me.’ He wouldn’t just bandy words about. It was on the inside, it was like a core inside him,” she said through tears.
Kyiv has initiated a criminal investigation into the death of Matsievskiy, who quickly became a hero on social media, where many supporters posted the words “Heroyam Slava,” or “Glory to the Heroes,” the traditional response to Slava Ukraini.
(Additional reporting by Max Hunder and Nick Starkov; writing by Elaine Monaghan; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
