– Mom, I never give up. 42-year-old Oleksandr Masievskyj was completely alert when he spoke to his mother Paraska Demtsyuk on the phone. December 29 last year was to be the last time the two spoke together, somewhere near the town of Soledar in Donetsk in eastern Ukraine. Masievskyj’s division was under fierce attack by what they themselves described as superior Russian forces. Russia on the offensive in Donbas Oleksandr Masievskyj and four other soldiers suddenly find themselves isolated from the rest of the unit. All attempts to come to their aid have failed. In the end, only Masievskyj is alive. He chooses to throw away the weapon and to give up the fight. Brutal execution. This image is taken from the video of the execution of Oleksandr Masievskyj, probably at the end of December 2022. Photo: Screenshot Brutal execution of an unarmed soldier That’s when the thing that shocked the whole world happens. For the Russian attackers, the now unarmed Ukrainian soldier asks to remove the Ukrainian insignia from his uniform jacket. But Oleksandr Masievskyj refuses and instead shouts “Glory to Ukraine”. Then he is mowed down by a salvo from what must be an automatic rifle. The story could have ended there. But one of the Russian soldiers filmed what happened. After a few months, he posted the macabre recording on social media. After some back and forth, Paraska Demtsyuk in the town of Nijen in the north of Ukraine was able to tell that it was her son who was on the video. This was also confirmed by the 163rd battalion of the Home Guard in Chernihiv region, which was the department Oleksandr Masievskyj served in. Oleksandr Masievskyj had participated in the fight against the Russian aggression ever since the spring of 2022. Photo: Private The body returned to Ukraine Russia delivered after a some time ago the dead body of Masievskyj, as part of an exchange between the Russian and Ukrainian forces. He was buried in Nizhny on February 14, 2023, in a cemetery where the graves of the dead local soldiers have become many after the major Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Oleksandr Masievskyj was buried in his hometown of Nizhny on February 14. Photo: The 163rd Battalion Three weeks later Oleksandr Masievskyj suddenly became something more than a name among thousands of other dead Ukrainian soldiers. – I saw how my father was killed. Oleksandr Masievskyj’s son Mykola called his grandmother Paraska to tell about the terrible video that soon everyone in Ukraine had seen. The last official photo of Oleksandr Masievskyj is said to have been taken just 10 days before he was executed by Russian soldiers. Ukraine gets new heroes Drawings and posters of the smoking Masievskyi awaiting his sentence soon appeared. Within hours, the man who shouted “Glory to Ukraine” as his last words had become a true war hero. A man who stood up to the Russian invaders until his last breath. Glory to the heroes – with the profile of Oleksandr Masievskyj the moment before he is executed, has become a symbol of the resistance struggle in Ukraine. And in the last week, Ukraine has spent a lot of time on its heroes. The day after the video of the execution of Masievskyj became known, the news came that Dmytro “Da Vinci” Kotjubailo had been killed. It happened during the fierce fighting for Bakhmut, 10 kilometers from Soledar, where Masievskyj was mowed down a good two months earlier. The 27-year-old Kochubailo was, in contrast to Masievskyj, a well-known name in Ukraine. He had his background from the right-wing movement Høyresektor, which since 2014 has been at the forefront of the fight against Russian aggression against Ukraine. This has also made him an object of hatred for the state-controlled Russian media, which believes he is proof of how infected Ukrainian society is by right-wing radical groups. Killed in Bakhmut But after the major Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Dmytro Kotjubailo has been singled out as one of those who have saved Ukraine. Not least because his experience from the field in the initial phase was absolutely invaluable in stopping the advancing Russian forces, as commander of the department that calls itself the Da Vinci Wolves. Dmytro Kotjubailo was one of the youngest commanders in the Ukrainian army. Photo: The Right Sector This department is now fully integrated into the Ukrainian army, and participated, among other things, in the liberation of the eastern part of Kharkiv Oblast in September 2022. . He was known to lead his soldiers into battle, never shying away from taking on the most dangerous missions. Together with his girlfriend Alina Mykhailova, he also ensured that there were always close ties between the soldiers in the field and support groups that ensure supplies of food, among other things. Dmytro Kotsjubailo and his girlfriend Alina Mykhailova photographed on a tank in August 2022. Photo: (Kostiantyn and Vlada Liberovy But on March 7, luck ran out. The official version is only that he was killed during the battles for Bakhmut. The heroes are important for Ukraine on March 10 took the entire political and military elite, led by President Volodymyr Zelenskyj, to say goodbye to the man who was also known by his nickname Da Vinci. Dmytro Kotsjubailo lay in an open coffin during the memorial ceremony in Kyiv on March 10. Photo: SERGEI SUPINSKY / AFP Dmytro Kotjubailo and Oleksandr Masievskyj. They both had to sacrifice their lives to become national heroes in the hard-tested Ukraine. Now they are being held up by the Ukrainian authorities as examples to follow, as the heroes that the country needs to win the battle against the Russian aggression. Where are the Russian heroes? Chief researcher Tor Bukkvoll at the Norwegian Defense Research Institute tells news that highlighting its own heroes, as Ukraine is now doing, is not unusual dead in a conflict. – The most interesting thing about the war between Russia and Ukraine is that it looks like Russian President Vladimir Putin does not want to raise his own dead soldiers and officers, says Bukkvoll. – Maybe he doesn’t want to do this so that these types of heroes can be seen as competitors against himself. Bukkvoll believes that there is hardly any doubt that Ukraine, which is the country that is the party attacked in this war, are the ones who want to use fallen heroes to strengthen morale. How many dead heroes do you need? The mayor of Nijen Oleksandr Kodola tells The Guardian newspaper that a statue should be erected to Masievskyj, but that a decision on this can be made once all the details of the execution have been clarified. The Ukrainian government said in December 2022 that up to 13,000 soldiers had lost their lives since 24 February of that year. That this number can be increased by many thousands since then, there is little doubt. The only question is how many heroes like Kotjubailo and Masievskyj. Ukraine must lose before there is peace in the war-torn country. On March 10, Alina Mykhailova said goodbye to her boyfriend Dmytro Kotsjubailo. Photo: Right-wing sector
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The hero cult is growing in Ukraine – while mothers and girlfriends sit back crying – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
