Mural dedicated to soldier murdered by Russians appears in center of Kyiv
A mural dedicated to Ukrainian defender Oleksandr Matsievsky has appeared in the center of Kyiv (Photo:Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine)
A mural dedicated to Hero of Ukraine Oleksandr Matsievsky, a soldier murdered by the Russians, and to the memory of all Ukrainian soldiers who have died during Russia’s war on Ukraine, has appeared in the center of Kyiv.
The mural is on one of the administrative buildings of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, the country’s parliament. It depicts an image of Matsievsky, as seen in a shocking video of his murder that started to circulate on social media in early March this year. In the video, Matsievsky is seen dying under a hail of bullets after uttering the words “Glory to Ukraine.”
On the Mural “Glory to Ukraine. Glory to heroes” – a patriotic phrase now in common use in Ukraine – is written above the image of Matsievsky.
The hero's mother Paraskovia Demchuk, was pictured viewing the new mural.
The work was created by the French artist Christian Guemy, more commonly knownby his pseudonym C215. The idea of creating a mural in Kyiv was raised when a delegation of the Verkhovna Rada visited the artist's exhibition during a visit to France in January 2023.
This is not the first work by Guemy in Ukraine. Earlier, he created street works in the cities of Lviv, Zhytomyr, and Kyiv, and the liberated towns of Bucha, Hostomel, and Irpin in Kyiv Oblast.
Died as a Hero
On March 6, a video appeared on the Internet in which Russian soldiers shoot an unarmed Ukrainian prisoner at close range. The Russians point the camera at the prisoner, he says "Glory to Ukraine", after which one of the Russians immediately shoots him in the head, and then several more times in the body.
Later, it was discovered that the murdered Ukrainian soldier was a sniper of the 163rd battalion of the 119th Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense of Chernihiv Oblast, named Oleksandr Ihorovych Matsievsky.
The 42-year-old Matsievsky was a citizen of Moldova, but lived in Nizhyn, in Chernihiv Oblast in north-central Ukraine. Immediately after the start of the full-scale Russian invasion on Feb. 24, 2022, Matsievsky went to fight as a volunteer. One of the streets of Nizhyn has since been renamed in his honor.
Ukraine’s SBU security service has managed to establish that Matsievsky was shot on Dec. 30, 2022. His body was returned home in February 2023.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conferred the title of Hero of Ukraine on Matsievsky on March 12.
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