Nearly 1,000 people attended a ceremony Sunday honoring the memory of Ukrainian journalist Iryna Tsybukh, who was killed in action while serving as a volunteer combat medic a few days before her 26th birthday.
Tsybukh was killed while on rotation in the Kharkiv area, where Russia started its offensive nearly a month ago.
She had left a note describing how she wished the ceremony to be held, asking people to sing Ukrainian songs and attend in vyshyvankas — traditional embroidered shirts — instead of black clothes.
“I want everyone to sing at the farewell, to learn at least 10 meaningful songs and sing them in unison, to extinguish sorrow with native songs,” she wrote. And instead of flowers, she said, she asked people to make donations to the Hospitallers Volunteer Medical Batallion, in which she served.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Nearly 1,000 people attended a ceremony Sunday honoring the memory of Ukrainian journalist Iryna Tsybukh, who was killed in action while serving as a volunteer combat medic a few days before her 26th birthday.
She had left a note describing how she wished the ceremony to be held, asking people to sing Ukrainian songs and attend in vyshyvankas — traditional embroidered shirts — instead of black clothes.
People later joined a column that moved to central Independence Square, a ritual that has become common during funerals of servicemen killed in action.
“Today everything is behind me, my life has ended, and it was important for me to live it with dignity: to be an honest, kind, and loving person,” she said in the letter that she wrote a year ago while serving in the embattled Donetsk region.
As the column arrived at Independence Square, hundreds knelt as the closed casket covered with the blue-yellow national flag was placed at the front.
Before Russia’s invasion, Tsybukh was part of the managing team who implemented reforms of Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne, she also oversaw educational projects in remote villages in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
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