NEW YORK (NYTIMES) - A ballet dancer. An award-winning actor. A biathlete. An actor who posted glamorous selfies on Instagram until he joined up and uploaded two final shots of himself looking stylish in camouflage.
These are some of the Ukrainian celebrities killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb 24. Their deaths add an extra dimension to the country's shock and anguish over the war.
Mr Artem Datsishin, one of Ukraine's leading dancers and a former principal dancer with the National Opera of Ukraine, died on Thursday (March 17) at a hospital in the capital city of Kyiv. He had been wounded last month by Russian artillery fire, according to posts by friends on social media.
Ukrainian actress Oksana Shvets was killed in a rocket attack on the capital, the Kyiv Post newspaper reported on Thursday. Ms Shvets was a member of the city's Young Theater and had won the Merited Artist of Ukraine award in 1996.
The war is reducing the distance between famous and ordinary Ukrainians because so many non-celebrities are making heroic sacrifices, said Ms Oleksandra Matviichuk, head of Ukraine's Centre for Civil Liberties. It has also made many people focus on issues of life and death that eclipse focus on fame.
"Prominent people do not use their privileged status to escape but to stand with the whole nation in this dramatic time," Ms Matviichuk said.
The International Biathlon Union mourned the death of a 19-year-old athlete, Mr Yevhen Malyshev. It said in a Twitter post on March 2 that he died while serving in the military.
Mr Pasha Lee, an actor from Crimea, was killed in Irpin on Sunday, according to local journalists and the Odesa International Film Festival. The city, about 25km north-west of Kyiv, has seen intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Before the war, his Instagram feed reflected a glamorous lifestyle. One picture showed him on a yacht, another scuba diving, a third in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
Mr Lee joined Ukraine's Territorial Defence Forces when the war began.
On March 1, he was pictured seated at a table in army fatigues and a beret. In his last Instagram post on March 4, he is again in combat gear, this time seated next to a woman also in uniform.
He died in shelling two days later.
