​The mother of Ukrainian soldier Oleksandr Matsievskyi, who was executed by the Russian military after saying “Glory to Ukraine!”, spoke about the terrible moment when she learned that her son had been killed in captivity.

“It was in the evening, I opened Facebook and watched a video, and it’s Sasha, a terrible video of an execution. I looked and shouted: “Six!” It was a shock! Sasha! The filming ended and I watched it again. I look, it’s Sasha, my Sasha,” a woman named Praskovia told Bild journalists.

She said she then called her sister-in-law, Oleksandr’s wife, and sent her a link to the Viber video.

“She looked at him and said: ‘He is our Sasha.’ Misha [fiul lui Oleksandr] he also confirmed: “He is our father!”. He threw the attack. “Grandma, this is our dad!”. The next day he called me: “This is our father! I recognized him by the way he smokes, by the way he stands, he is our father! It was a cry from the depths of his heart.” He cried a lot, cried on the phone,” the woman recounted the conversation.

Oleksandr Matsievskyi was identified on Thursday by his family and the Ukrainian armed forces after the soldier was initially given a different name in a video that shocked the international community.

Who was executed by the Russians for shouting “Glory to Ukraine”

Before the war, Oleksandr Matsievskyi worked as an electrician in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. After the beginning of the Russian invasion, he volunteered for the Territorial Defense Forces of the city of Nizhyn, Chernihiv Region, one of the crucial areas for the Russians in their plans to quickly conquer Kyiv.

But it was not possible to draft him right away, so he helped build fortifications, manned a checkpoint, prepared Molotov cocktails and insisted on returning to the conscription point. On March 11, he was enrolled in the Territorial Defense Battalion of the city of Nijin.

On March 29, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced a “sharp reduction” of military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv regions, effectively abandoning plans to capture the capital of Ukraine.

In December, when the battalion was about to be sent to the east, Alexander did not tell his mother that he was going to a zone of active hostilities, because he did not want her to worry. Saying goodbye to his mother, he thanked her for giving birth to him.

But he called the woman on December 29, the last time they spoke. On Thursday, Praskovia said she knew her son was on the front lines when he told her on the phone, “Mom, I’ll never give up!”

42-year-old Oleksandr Matsievskyi was born in the Republic of Moldova, where his mother was sent during the communist period to work as a technologist at a shoe factory in Chisinau.

There, Oleksandr later graduated from high school and an electrical engineering college. The family later returned to Nizhyn, Ukraine.

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