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Ukraine ballet dancer dies: Artists, sportspersons pay price of war
222 people have been killed in the capital alone since the start of the war, according to rough estimates, including 60 civilians and four children.
Ukrainian ballet dancer Artyom Datsishin has died, multiple reports said, weeks after sustaining injuries in the Russian shelling in the capital city of Kyiv. Datsishin - principal dancer with the National Opera of Ukraine - died on Thursday. He was 43. He was said to be seriously wounded amid shelling on February 26. "He was a beautiful dancer loved by his colleagues. Unbearable pain," Alexei Ratmansky, the former artistic director of the iconic Bolshoi Ballet, wrote in a Facebook post. There has been a tremendous human cost of the Ukraine war that started February 24 when Russia launched a surprise attack despite global pressure.
A Ukrainian actress, Oksana Shvets, was also killed as a Russian rocket attacked a residential building in the capital city of Kyiv on Friday. Confirming her death, her troupe, the Young Theatre, issued a statement that read, "During the rocket shelling of a residential building in Kyiv, a well-deserved artist of Ukraine Oksana Shvets was killed."
The war-torn country also lost its two footballers on March 3, global footballers' union FIFPRO had confirmed. 21-year-old Vitalii Sapylo and 25-year-old Dmytro Martynenko died in the conflict days after the military invasion by the Russian forces, according to a report.
222 people have been killed in the capital alone since the start of the war, according to rough estimates, including 60 civilians and four children. The UN rights office has reported 816 confirmed civilian deaths in the war-torn nation so far.
Ukraine's food supply chains are breaking down and the conflict is leading to "collateral hunger" across the world, the UN food aid agency warned. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said rescue work continued to save hundreds of people still believed to be trapped under the rubble of a bombed theatre in the besieged city of Mariupol.
The UN refugee agency says 6.5 million have fled since the beginning of the Russian invasion on Feb 24, with further 2 million displaced inside the country.
