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A Ukrainian poet and screenwriter was reportedly killed on the frontlines while fighting against Russia in Donetsk Oblast.
Myroslav Herasymovych died on 25 November just four days before turning 57, his brother Taras Kulyk confirmed on Facebook.
“In the battle with Russia, my brother, Myroslav, gave away his life in the city of Avdiivk, Donetsk region,” Mr Kulyk wrote on Friday about his brother whose real name is Myroslav Kulyk, according to Ukrainska Pravda. He shared a picture of his brother wearing a military uniform.
Herasymovych was reportedly a poet, prose writer, screenwriter, and musician and had joined the Ukrainian military to fight against Russia in Vladimir Putin’s 33-month-long war on Ukraine.
He was born in Lutsk, northwestern Ukraine, on 29 November and graduated from the Faculty of Journalism at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He founded the School of Liberal Arts named after Evening Space, Ukrainska Pravda reported.
“Mik, fly high and lightly, ‘higher and higher’, as granny Helia used to say, up to your heavenly School of Liberal Arts,” said journalist Myroslava Barchuk.
Herasymovych is one of the over 100 cultural figures, including writers and artists, to have been killed by Russian forces in Ukraine since Russia launched its war on Ukraine on 24 February 2022, PEN International said in a statement.
“The ability of future generations to participate in artistic activities, as well as critically and collectively reflect, is also severely impacted through death, disruption to education, malnutrition, starvation, and disease…,” PEN International said.
Since the beginning of the war, at least 11,973 Ukrainian civilians, including 622 children, have been killed, the UN office of the high commissioner for Human Rights said in October. The Economist reported that at least 60,000-100,000 Ukrainian soldiers have died so far, while another 400,000 sustained injuries.
Russia has suffered more than 2,000 casualties in a single day, Ukraine’s military claimed, in what would mark one of the heaviest toll of losses inflicted on Vladimir Putin’s forces at any point in the war so far.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has suggested he would temporarily cede Ukrainian territory to Russia in exchange for joining Nato to end the “hot phase” of the war.
“If we want to stop the hot phase of the war, we need to take under the Nato umbrella the territory of Ukraine that we have under our control,” Mr Zelensky told Sky News.
“We need to do it fast. And then on the occupied territory of Ukraine, Ukraine can get them back in a diplomatic way.”
