In Memory of Vasyl Slipak, Ukrainian Hero

Vasyl Slipak would have been honored to be remembered and acclaimed for his operatic accomplishments on the stage of the Paris Opera. He had lived in the French capital for 19 years, where he had been honing his musical skills.

Vasyl would have been ecstatic to have been favorably reviewed in such vaunted daily newspapers as The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Vasyl, a native of Lviv, loved to sing and had done so since his youth. He was a member of that western Ukrainian city’s famous boys’ choir called “Dudaryk,” which means young piper. He was with the chorus when it toured Ukrainian communities in the United States in the summer of 1990.

Vasyl attained high esteem but not until he returned to Ukraine and exchanged the opera stage for the bloody frontline of Ukraine’s war with Russia. On Wednesday, June 29, Vasyl’s life was cut short at the age of 41 by a sniper’s bullet. That’s when The New York Times, The Washington Post and a host of other non-Ukrainian periodicals wrote about his heroic life and death.

My friend from Lviv, Valeriy, a retired airborne officer, who has been sharing with me his observations the war, offered a few of his thoughts about Vasyl and the Russian invasion.

Valeriy wrote that when the Russo-Ukraine War of 2014-16 began, Vasyl returned to Ukraine to provide assistance to the war effort. At first he transported supplies, ammunition and first aid. Then, according to Vasyl’s own words, he decided to go the extra mile by joining one of the volunteer units fighting Russian regular troops and terrorists in eastern Ukraine in order to learn better what has been happening there. Vasyl became a machine gunner.

“He served on the front line for two years, and he was killed in battle, repelling an attack by muscovite soldiers,” Valeriy recounted.

“Last rites for the hero were first conducted in the town of Dnipro, led by the local mayor and Vasyl’s comrades in arms. And then, last Friday, in Lviv, where countless people turned out to pay their last respects. The hero was interred in the historic Lychakiv cemetery, in the Pantheon of Heroes. Such a loss, so sad,” wrote Valeriy.

My friend quoted a comment by Oleksandr Babchenko, who he called a rare “normal” Russian journalist, who had stated that dregs of society, or in his words, car washers, make up the Russian army in Moscow’s war against Ukraine. While the finest sons of Ukraine fight and die in defense of their country.

Indeed, Vasyl joins the ranks of other heroic sons and daughters of Ukraine who fight and have been killed in Russia’s undeclared war with Ukraine, including 55-year-old Ukrainian American Mark Paslawsky, an investment banker from New Jersey, who gave up his day job to fight for Ukraine and died of his battlefield wounds on August 19, 2014.

“Unfortunately, our soldiers are killed almost every day, except no one reads about them. Scarcity of statistics,” Valeriy wrote.

Vasyl’s death brings to mind another striking contrast between victim Ukraine and criminal Russia. In Ukraine, each soldier, killed in action, is brought home to be buried in his parish cemetery with complete military and civilian honors. Family, friends, neighbors and plain Ukrainians line the road the hearse takes to the final resting place. Military bands, comrades in arms and Ukrainian Catholic or Orthodox priests officiate. Mothers and wives have the privilege of shedding tears and mourning for their loved ones.

In Russia, Putin has denied mothers and wives the privilege of shedding tears and mourning for their loved ones because they are buried in secret if they are buried at all in Russia.

The sniper who killed Vasyl was promoted on Russian television until one day, when he met his death at the hands of Vasyl’s frontline buddies.

Valeriy also wrote that in the meantime, the enemy is actively preparing for the final battle, mobilizing its troops, weapons, ammunitions, artillery, tanks and logistics. He said the daily skirmishes that we read about are merely reconnaissance battles or probes to test the preparedness and strength of the Ukrainian armed forces, National Guard and volunteer battalions.

“Right now, Putin and his junta are doing everything possible to inflame Ukraine from the inside, according to military experts. But they know every well that these skirmishes and clashes will not lead to their desired result, so they are also preparing for an ultimate, massive invasion,” Valeriy wrote.

Vasyl Slipak, Mark Paslawsky and Nadiya Savchenko are well known contemporary Ukrainian heroes, patriots and nationalists among thousands of comrades fighting and dying for Ukraine. Hopefully, their sacrifice will serve as a wake-up call to the free world to stand up and do more to subdue Russia.