Executed for "Glory to Ukraine!": what we know about Oleksandr Matsiievskyi
On 6 March 2023, a video of Russian soldiers executing a Ukrainian defender in captivity appeared online.
Before being shot, the Ukrainian soldier said, "Glory to Ukraine!".
On 12 March 2023, the Security Service of Ukraine identified the soldier. It was Oleksandr Matsiievskyi, a sniper from the 163rd Battalion of the 119th Territorial Defence Brigade of Chernihiv Oblast.
Oleksandr was born on 10 May 1980 in Moldova and was a citizen of that country. He completed his high school education and graduated from electrical engineering college there. After that, the family returned to their homeland – Nizhyn, a city in Chernihiv Oblast.
Up to February 2022, Matsiievskyi worked as an electrician in Kyiv.
"He worked at the Expocentre of Ukraine in Kyiv as a highly qualified electrician. He was a very cheerful and kind guy, a hard-working specialist," the Expocentre CEO Yevhen Mushkin recounted after his employee was killed.
"There were no empty authorities for Sashko in life. He could easily send those he did not respect after the Russian warship," Oleksandr’s colleague says. [This is a reference to the phrase "Russian warship, go f*** yourself"; that was the reply of Ukrainian border guards who defended Zmiinyi (Snake) Island, when a Russian Black Sea Fleet vessel ordered them to surrender – ed.]
On the first day of the Russian full-scale aggression, Matsiievskyi voluntarily went to the military enlistment office in Nizhyn.
At first, he helped arrange fortifications, guarded checkpoints and prepared Molotov cocktails. On 11 March 2022, he was accepted into the Nizhyn Territorial Defence Battalion.
Oleksandr Matsiievslyi was appointed a sniper.
On 29 December 2022, he called his mother for the last time and said that "he would never surrender".
Paraska Demchuk, the 67-year-old mother of the soldier, confessed that she could not sleep after she saw the video of her son online.
"It is hard. I saw my son being killed. And my son’s nature – brave and invincible. He would say ‘Glory to Ukraine!’ even in his sleep," Paraska told Suspilne.
Oleksandr’s comrades-in-arms say that on 30 December 2022, Matsiievskyi and four more soldiers took the fight to hostile forces that outnumbered them while moving to another position near Soledar.
That day at noon, all visual contact and connection with them disappeared.
Since the end of December, Matsiievskyi was reported as missing in action near Krasna Hora, Donetsk Oblast.
As the Security Service of Ukraine has managed to establish, Oleksandr was executed on 30 December 2022. His body was returned home in February 2023.
On 14 February 2023, he was buried in Nizhyn.
"It is a true hero who demonstrates what Ukrainian spirit and invincibility are to the entire world, even looking death in the eye. Such defenders are defending our land today, which means that the enemy will surely be crushed. Because Ukraine’s great victory consists of the heroic deeds of people like Oleksandr Matsiievskyi. Glory to the hero! Glory to heroes! Glory to Ukraine!" Vasyl Maliuk, Chief of the Security Service, says.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine to Oleksandr Matsievskyy, who was executed in captivity after saying "Glory to Ukraine!".
The Security Service of Ukraine has opened criminal proceedings regarding a video in which Russian invaders shot an unarmed Ukrainian soldier.
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