Tributes in Bendigo for Ukraine soldier killed at front

Sopovsky Yuri Vesilievich was killed in the Luhansk region last week as the Russians shelled near a village called Serafintsiv.

He survived by his wife and two children, aged three and four years.

Yuri may never have visited Bendigo but his legacy is being felt among Australian family members including Kangaroo Flat's Ray Slywka.

"He's got young children who will never know him, a wife who is still very young," he said.

"And it's a very sad time for me. Yuri's my sister's grandson."

Mr Slywka wants to share Yuri's story with Bendigo as a tribute to a brave soul and to help people understand the conflict unfolding with Russia.

He is being buried shortly at a funeral his entire village is expected to attend but his life story begins with him alone, crying in a Ukrainian forest.

Yuri had been abandoned there, for reasons his adopted family cannot know for sure, and was saved by two teenagers who heard his cries.

They took him to a nearby hospital, where he came to the attention of a couple who had been trying for a baby of their own for some time.

"He was an outward-going bloke. His family members were happy to have him as a child," Mr Slywka said.

"They nurtured him through. He went to the local school, he was very healthy, extremely good looking, he had a beautiful bride and his two children were very nice too."

Yuri became a construction worker on big projects in Poland and Czechoslovakia, much like many in a country where well-paying opportunities could be harder to come by.

Then Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February, 2022.

Mr Slywka believes Yuri would have been among the first to put their hand up if asked to go to war.

"He was very patriotic for Ukraine, the same as everyone in his village," he said.

That level of support has not always necessarily been universal in Ukraine.

People in different parts of the country might have cultural ties to Hungary, Poland or Russia, for example, thanks to borders that have shifted over time in the huge country.

Mr Slywka visited Kyiv and Ukraine's east region to watch parts of an international soccer competition and at times found himself surrounded by locals who only stopped speaking Russian to sing their country's national anthem.

"You'd think geez, where am I? Ukraine or Russia?" he said.

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That sort of support is widely held to have cratered after Russia's full-scale 2022 invasion, widespread reports of war crimes and a feeling the invaders are trying to stymy a democratic pivot towards Europe.

"There's nothing for Ukrainians in the old Russian system," Mr Slywka said.

But there is still a long way to go until the country is united, not least because an invader still physically occupies so much land.

Ukraine's president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has consistently ruled out any peace deal that would cede land to the Russians.

Mr Slywka does not blame him.

"I think to myself, enough blokes have died there that out of respect for them, it should never be given away," he said.

"What would they have died for, if it was given to Russia?"

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