>
Up-and-coming Ukrainian decathlon champion and ‘true hero’ who ‘could have gone to the Paris Olympics’ dies in battle
- Volodymyr Androshchuk, 22, was killed in battle near Bakhmut on January 25.
- He was a ‘promising’ decathlete who ‘could have gone to the Paris Olympics’
A promising Ukrainian decathlon champion and “real hero” who “could have gone to the Paris Olympics” has been killed in combat.
Volodymyr Androshchuk, the under-20 decathlon champion, died near Bakhmut on January 25.
On Twitter, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said: ‘A promising athlete and a true hero.
“I could have been able to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris, if Russia had not invaded Ukraine.
‘Why do the Russians still have this privilege?’
Volodymyr Androshchuk, the under-20 decathlon champion, was killed in battle near Bakhmut on January 25.
On Twitter, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said: ‘A promising athlete and a true hero. He could have been able to participate in the Olympic Games in Paris, if Russia had not invaded Ukraine’
Anton Gerashchenko, former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, paid tribute to the athlete.
He said: ‘Volodymyr Androshchuk, Ukrainian track and field athlete, member of the national team, was killed in combat near Bakhmut.
‘RIP, Volodymyr. We keep losing our best people.
Family and friends of Androshchuk, 22, said goodbye to the athlete-turned-soldier on Wednesday.
They were seen crying as they lined up for his open casket.
At his funeral, in the western Ukrainian town of Letychiv, his friends passionately declared that Russians should be barred from next year’s Olympics.
They said they were bitter that Mr. Androshchuk lost his chance to compete on the world’s most prestigious sports arena.
Androshchuk volunteered for the army and was hit by shrapnel in Bakhmut last week.
It comes when a pro-Putin mercenary who waved the ‘skull of a dead Ukrainian’ in front of the crowd and called for the killing of civilians was shot in the head.
Igor Mangushev, 36, is “in serious condition” after the possible “warning strike”.
In the early hours of Saturday, Mangushev was taken to hospital in Stakhanov, in Russia’s eastern Donetsk region, with a gunshot wound to the head. The Telegraph reports.
Graphic images showing Mangushev lying bloody in a hospital bed have been shared on social media by his friend Boris Rozhkin, who has described his condition as “serious”.
Family and friends of Mr. Androshchuk, 22, said goodbye to the athlete-turned-soldier on Wednesday (Pictured: A fellow serviceman holding a photo of Mr. Androshchuk)
At his funeral, in the western Ukrainian town of Letychiv, his friends passionately declared that Russians should be barred from next year’s Olympics.
The pro-Putin activist Mangushev promised in his sick tirade: “We will make a chalice out of your skull.”
Doctors are said to have determined that someone shot him at close range with a pistol. No further details of the attack are known at this time.
Mangushev sparked revulsion last August, when footage surfaced of him apparently shaking the skull of a Ukrainian soldier killed in Mariupol on stage.
The twisted ultranationalist said: ‘Why can’t there be any reconciliation?
‘Ukraine must be un-Ukrainian. The Russian lands of Novorossiya must be returned.
‘We are not at war with people of flesh and blood. We are at war with one idea: Ukraine as an anti-Russian state.”
Holding the skull, he was quoted by Astra media as saying: “We are alive and this guy is already dead.”
‘Let him burn in hell. He had no luck. We will make a cup with his skull.