Killed shows Putin why Ukraine is invincible

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The Russians wanted to kill Alexander Matsievsky († 42). Instead, they made him immortal. It took them exactly twelve seconds. That’s how long the video shows the execution of the unarmed Ukrainian soldier somewhere in the forests of Donbass. Matsievsky is in a small depression. Maybe that was his position on the front line, maybe it was the earthly grave he had to dig for himself.

Unclear. Just as obscure as the identities of the men filming the scene. One of them mumbles something. Matsievsky, Soldier of the 163rd Battalion of the 119th Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, just stands there, an army cap on his head, a cigarette in the corner of his mouth. He stoically looks into the camera, takes one last drag, exhales and calmly says his very last words: “Slava Ukraini!” (“Honor to Ukraine!”). Shots are then fired, hitting Matsievsky in the face and upper body. He falls dead. “Die, bitch!” shouts one of his killers.

“They can’t enslave us, so they want to destroy us”

The still from the video, which shows Matsievsky standing in the woods seconds before his death with a cigarette and an army cap, quickly spread around the world. The simple man, once an electrician in Kiev, well aware of his impending violent death, maintains his dignity and does not give up: in no time he has become a symbol of the heroic resistance that Ukraine offers against invaders from the neighboring country.

Alexander Matsievsky made it unmistakably clear with his gesture why Vladimir Putin (70) will never beat Ukraine: whoever sows hatred and death will never reap genuine respect. The Ukrainians will not be defeated by tyranny, however cold-blooded it may be. They cling steadfastly to their belief in freedom and self-determination — at least as much as political Switzerland clings to its almost unshakable belief in neutrality.

“The video shows the helplessness of the Russians,” Ukrainian war reporter Serhiy Okishev (37) told Blick. “They couldn’t force Matsievsky to take off his uniform. They couldn’t intimidate him.” The Russians have always failed in their venture in Ukraine: “They cannot enslave us, so they try to destroy us.”

The Ukrainians resisted this destructive urge not only with tanks and soldiers, but everywhere and again and again with their stoic composure. Anyone traveling through the country is shocked by the seemingly indifferent ease with which the people of the former Soviet Republic deal with the hard daily life of this war.

“If we survive this, where are we going to party?”

In late summer, the author of these lines met the widow Anna in the embattled suburbs of Sloviansk, who wanted to continue cultivating her vegetable garden, even though Russian shells thundered over her house almost every minute. Or the translator Yevhen, who smiled and sat down next to the reporter under Russian fire on the Donbass front and asked: “If we survive this, where are we going to celebrate tonight?” Or the young soldier Dmytro Finashyn, who lost his left arm on the battlefield and yet calmly says: “As soon as I can shoot again, I will go back to the front.”

Despite all the horror, Alexander Matsievsky has given Ukrainian relaxation a face that is now known all over the world. Very few of the hundreds of thousands of atrocities committed in the war in Ukraine have such shocking images as his execution. It is quite possible that it is he who stands out among all the dead at the end of this war – involuntarily.

His face has long been burned into Ukrainian memories. Should Vladimir Putin ever see the photo and look into Matsievsky’s calm eyes, it should teach him to fear.

Source: Blick