Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi on Friday honored the memory of the fighter Dmytro Kotsyubail, known as “Da Vinci”, publicly expressing his affection for the man who devoted “his entire adult life” to the defense of Ukraine, Reuters reports.

Dmytro Kotsyubailo was a well-known military man in Ukraine, he served and fought against Russian troops since 2014, when he was still a teenager.

The 27-year-old, whose unit was known as the Da Vinci Wolves, was killed this week in Bakhmut, an eastern Ukrainian city that has seen the bloodiest fighting of the war since August and remains the subject of intense controversy.

Zelenskyy, together with the Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, appeared in St. Michael’s Cathedral in the center of Kyiv to lay flowers on Kotubailo’s coffin.

“It hurts to lose our heroes. Brave and strong. Loyal to themselves and the state,” Zelenskyy wrote in Telegram.

“I presented Oksana Kotsyubailo, Da Vinci’s mother, with the Cross of Military Merit, which her son received posthumously. We will never forget. And we will always be grateful,” he said.

Later, hundreds of people gathered at the nearby Independence Square, which symbolizes Ukraine’s attempts to leave Russia’s sphere of influence and move closer to the European Union.

Among the guests of honor on the square were Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine General Valery Zaluzhny.

Reznikov near Kotyubail’s coffin (Photo: Serhiy SUPINSKY / AFP / Profimedia)

In 2022, before the full-scale Russian invasion, Zelenskyy named Kotsyubailo a “Hero of Ukraine” for his involvement in the fight against pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since the armed conflict began in 2014.

Despite rumors of an imminent withdrawal, Ukraine’s president said on Monday that he had ordered the army to find forces to bolster the defenses of the eastern city under an ongoing siege that is draining both Ukrainian and increasingly Russian forces.