Funeral service for first Estonian to fall in Ukraine war held in Kyiv
Estonia's Ambassador to Ukraine joined mourners and comrades of Ivo Jurak, at a funeral ceremony in the Ukrainian capital Thursday morning, Postimees reports on its English-language page. Jurak's ashes will be repatriated to Estonia.
Jurak was the first Estonian to fall in the current phase of the Ukraine war.
Ambassador Kaimo Kuusk said at the ceremony that: "It is very difficult as an ambassador of Estonia to bid the last farewell to an Estonian who came here to defend Ukraine; who came here to defend the free world, of which Estonia is a part."
Fellow volunteers fighting for Ukraine and Ukrainian soldiers themselves said that Jurak, a former Estonian defense Forces intelligence officer who had been serving in Ukraine since the early stages of the current Russian invasion, was their brother, and had been fighting for Estonia's freedom as well as that of Ukraine.
Most of Jurak's unit, which had been engaged in the struggle in Khromovo, just outside Bakhmut, in the Donbas region, where he was killed instantly by a shell blast, were present at the ceremony, and proposed he be decorated posthumously.
He was cremated in Kyiv, and his ashes will be repatriated to his family in Estonia shortly, Postimees reports.
The original Postimees piece is here.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte
Source: Postimees
