Combat medic and public activist Iryna Tsybukh was killed while on rotation near the front in Kharkiv Oblast on May 29, just a few days before her 26th birthday, Hospitallers Medical Battalion said on social media on May 30.
"This is an indescribable pain and an incredible loss not only for the battalion, but for all of Ukraine," Hospitallers wrote.
Tsybukh had over 19,000 followers on Instagram and regularly appeared in the media, where she shared her experiences of the war and her work as a volunteer combat medic.
President Volodymyr Zelensky presented Tsybukh with an Order of Merit in November 2023 for her work as a combat medic, something she described as feeling "unexpected and unreal."
Tsybukh regularly took part in public discussions on issues like the role of women who serve on the front line and how to best memoralize of those who had been killed in Russia's invasion.
Before the full-scale invasion, Tsybukh worked as a media trainer and as a manager for Suspilne, Ukraine's public broadcaster.
Daria Shulzhenko
Originally from Lviv, Tsybukh worked with children and had made a film about children growing up in villages in in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, which was supposed to be shown in Kyiv on February 25, 2022.
Tsybukh volunteered to join Hospitallers after the full-scale invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022, having previously served several rotations with the battalion since 2014.
"I never wanted to be in a war," Tsybukh told Elle Ukraine in an interview published in July 2022.
"I am a girl who likes to travel and do educational projects for children. I am not a person who dreamed of working as a paramedic all my life. But Russian aggression forced me to defend my country," Tsybukh said.
Serhii Korovayny
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