Kyiv: Ukrainian ballet star Artyom Datsishin has lost his life amid Russia’s ongoing military operation in the Eastern European country.
Datsishin passed away on Thursday from wounds he suffered in Russian shelling weeks earlier. He was 43, news portal People reported after obtaining the information from Evening Standard. A funeral was held in Kyiv on Friday.
Datsishin was a principal dancer with the National Opera of Ukraine. He would be cremated on Friday in Kyiv. Throughout his career, Datsishin toured in Europe and the United States.
He had performed the main roles in ‘Swan Lake’, ‘The Nutcracker’, ‘Sleeping Beauty’, and ‘Romeo and Juliet’.
Artyom’s friend Tatyana Borovik said that he was wounded in the capital city of Kyiv just two days after the Russian invasion began. His friend wrote on Facebook, “On February 26, he was fired upon by the Russian military,” friend. He “was seriously wounded,” Borovik continued, adding that he “died in the hospital.”
“I can’t express my heartache that is overwhelming me,” she wrote. “May your memory be bright.”
Alexei Ratmansky, a Russian choreographer and former artistic director of the Bolshoi Ballet, paid a tribute to the ballet dancer. ”I am furious,” he said, adding that Datsishin’s death at the hands of Russian invaders provoked ‘unbearable pain’.
A few days ago, Ukraine bid farewell to actress Oksana Shvets who was killed in a Russian rocket attack on a residential building in the capital city.
On February 24, Russia began a military operation in Ukraine, responding to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in countering the aggression of Ukrainian troops. The Russian Defense Ministry said the special operation is targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure only.
According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, almost 600 civilians have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in Ukraine since the start of the conflict.