The filmed death of this soldier has scandalized Ukraine, whose authorities denounce a new “war crime”.
“Heroes of Ukraine”. This decoration – the highest of the Ukrainian national order – was granted posthumously by Volodymyr Zelensky, Sunday March 12, to Oleksandr Matsiyevsky. This 42-year-old soldier, whose circumstances of death remain unclear, was executed while he was a prisoner of war.
“We will find his killers”, promised the Ukrainian president on March 6, when a video showing the execution of the soldier spread on social networks. We saw the man standing there, without a weapon and a cigarette in his mouth, being riddled with bullets after having chanted “Glory to Ukraine!”. Franceinfo returns to the death of this fighter, erected as a symbol of Russian aggression by the Ukrainian authorities.
He had disappeared at the end of December 2022
According to information provided by the Ukrainian army, Oleksandr Matsiyevsky was a sniper fighting in the 119th brigade of the Territorial Defense Force, composed of reservists and volunteers. He was on a mission in the Soledar region (east of the country), at the end of December, when his command lost track of him and that of four soldiers from his group. At the time of his disappearance, the 40-year-old was more precisely on the outskirts of the village of Krasna Hora, between Soledar and Bakhmout, the Ukrainian intelligence services (SBU) revealed on Telegram on Sunday. (press release in Ukrainian).
“The SBU has established that Oleksandr Matsiyevsky was shot and killed on December 30, 2022. His body was repatriated in February 2023”, detailed the service, which says it relies in particular on forensic expertise and exchanges with the family of the killed soldier. According to the Meduza news site (article in English), the sniper’s body was returned to his family as part of an exchange of remains between Ukraine and Russia. He was then able to be formally identified by his relatives in a morgue in kyiv.
Always on Telegram, Vasyl Malyouk, the head of the SBU, added that his services were seeking to “identify the occupants who committed this bloody crime”. The task looks complex, because very little information emerges from the execution video of Oleksandr Matsiyevsky. We hear a man say “Film it” in Russian, then the Ukrainian soldier shouts his slogan and is killed. “Die!”, we hear then, while the Ukrainian sniper lies on the ground, insulted by one of his executioners. Were they Russian soldiers? Wagner Group mercenaries? Pro-Russian separatists? These images, relayed en masse on social networks since March 6, constitute for the moment one of the only resources available to Ukrainian investigators.
He was an electrician before the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Until February 2022, the reserve serviceman worked as an electrician in Kyiv. He was also of Moldovan nationality, as confirmed by his government on Monday March 13 to the Interfax agency. (article in English). “The Moldovan Ministry of Foreign Affairs strongly condemns the murder of a Moldovan citizen, an act which can be qualified as a war crime and a flagrant violation of international humanitarian law”denounced Chisinau.
As his family told the public channel Suspilne (in Ukrainian), Oleksandr Matsiyevsky had volunteered for the territorial defense of Nijine, in northern Ukraine. He had served in the Cherniv region before joining that of Donetsk, further east, but had not told his mother that he was fighting near Soledar, one of the hottest points on the front line.
Although they were able to recover the body of Oleksandr Matsiyevsky in February, the family of the executed soldier did not know anything about the circumstances of his death. “It was one evening, I opened Facebook and saw a video”, told the soldier’s mother to a German journalist from Picturein an interview shared on Twitter. “It was Sasha [le surnom de son fils]in a terrible execution video that I watched over and over screaming ‘That’s my son!'”she said.
“The video of this tragedy will be one of the symbols of Ukraine’s invincibility! It is an example of courage and heroism”assured at franceinfo Oleksandr Kodola, mayor of Nidjine, where the soldier’s body was buried on February 14.
He became an icon of the Ukrainian resistance
By decorating Oleksandr Matsiyevsky, President Volodymyr Zelensky wanted to inscribe his name in the history of the country, evoking “a man who will be known and remembered forever. For his bravery, for his confidence in Ukraine and for his ‘Glory to Ukraine!’“, the slogan launched on the first evening of the Russian invasion. On Twitter, the Ukrainian leader accompanied his message with one of the many illustrations inspired by the last seconds of Oleksandr Matsiyevsky’s life.
Since the publication of this video, Russia has made no comment on the execution of which Ukraine accuses it, and which would violate the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war and as well as article 438 of the penal code. Ukrainian (PDF document in English) on the laws and customs of war. In the meantime, tributes to Oleksandr Matsiyevsky are raining down on social networks, where his silhouette alone is an anti-invasion slogan. On Sunday, during a Ukrainian first division football match, the players of the Veres Rivne team entered the field, for example, wearing t-shirts to the glory of the soldier killed in captivity.