Volodymyr Yezhov was killed defending Bakhmut, which Russia is desperate to capture
A video game designer who bravely left the world of shoot-’em-ups behind to fight for real for his country Ukraine has been killed on the front line.
Volodymyr Yezhov died defending Bakhmut, the eastern town that Vladimir Putin’s Russian invaders have been trying in vain to capture since May.
The 38-year-old worked on the STALKER series, in which players confront mutants around Ukraine’s Chernobyl plant after a fictional second disaster that follows the nuclear meltdown there in 1986.
The face of a fighter in one of the games, Loki, who leads a ‘freedom detachment’, was based on Yezhov, who is believed to have been dad to two sons.
In a veiled tribute before his December 22 death was confirmed, a colleague at GSC Game World wrote in a Christmas message to fans about a ‘red-haired lad’ who had been ‘clutching his freedom badge till the end’.
Thousands of Ukrainians from all walks of life have signed up to fight since Russia invaded last February.
Ukrainian servicemen carry Yezhov’s coffin on December 27 2022 (Picture: Efrem Lukatsky/AP)
The game series Yezhov worked on is set in the aftermath of a fictional second Chernobyl disaster
Another recent casualty was film editor Viktor Onysko, whose work included Battle for Sevastopol – based on the true story of a female Soviet sniper who killed hundreds of invading Nazis during World War II.
His wife Olga wrote as she announced his death: ‘You were very tired, but you cared about your brothers. You were worried about every loss. You said that in war there is no greater torture than informing the families of the dead. Now I felt it myself.’
Film editor Viktor Onysko has also been killed defending Ukraine after joining the military
Film director Dmytro Sukholytkly-Sobchuk wrote: ‘It is hard to believe. A person of great heart, strength of spirit, deep sense of justice and unbridled truth in every word, look and deed.’
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