Oleksandr Shapoval, 47, retired from a long career as a dancer with the National Opera last year and began teaching in Kyiv before joining his country’s military forces
A distinguished Ukrainian ballet dancer, who this week lost his life fighting on the front lines against Russian forces that have invaded his country, was honored today at a ceremony in National Opera of Ukraine.
A final ovation for ballet dancer Oleksandr Shapoval at the Kyiv Opera House.
He’d performed for 28 seasons before volunteering to fight in the east.
While Ukraine enjoys successes on the battlefield, his death is a reminder of the enduring, awful cost of this war. pic.twitter.com/6V1m2vVFlr
— James Waterhouse (@JamWaterhouse) September 17, 2022
The National Opera described him as a “courageous romantic” and a brave fighter Alexander Shapovalwho on September 12 was killed by a Russian mortar explosion in eastern Ukraine.
Among those attending the ceremony were soldiers from the Shapoval unit and members of Kyiv’s artistic community, who gathered in the vestibule of the Opera House to lay flowers on his coffin before it was draped in the Ukrainian national flag.
Shapoval, 47, retired from a long career as a dancer with the National Opera last year and began teaching in Kyiv before joining his country’s military to defend the Ukrainian capital after the February 24 Russian invasion.
Later he went to fight in his district Donetsk of eastern Ukraine, scene of some of the fiercest fighting during the war.
RES-EMP
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