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The American citizen killed in Ukraine yesterday has been named as Jimmy Hill, a 67-year-old from Idaho who had stayed in the warzone to look after a sick friend and was gunned down lining up to buy bread
The American citizen killed in Ukraine yesterday has been named as Jimmy Hill, a 67-year-old from Idaho who had stayed in the warzone to look after a sick friend and was gunned down lining up to buy bread.
Hill’s family named him on Facebook on Thursday after Secretary of State Antony Blinken confirmed the death of a US citizen at a press conference.
Hill was a lecturer in Kyiv but was in Chernihiv to care for Ira, the woman he was caring for. Friends said the pair were a couple and that he died caring for the woman he loves.
He is understood to have one adult son from a previous relationship.
On Monday, Hill was among a group of ten who were lining up to buy bread at a grocery store when Russian troops opened fire in a sickening act of war.
Hill had been posting on Facebook from Chernihiv until his death, sharing upbeat jokes and photos of himself unshaven.
In a March 7 post, he said: ‘The past two nights very limited rocket fire during the night. People are able to sleep. We have food. I went to market yesterday and bought food for kitchen staff…the shooting started about 2 hours ago.
‘We would like to try and break out of here. We are hoping for cease fire and green corridor. It would be a pity to come all this way and after years of waiting for a drug to stop her disease progression and to go home empty-handed. We need rituximab or something similar. Without it Ira will not be able to survive much longer.
He had been posting for weeks about spending nights in bomb shelters while rushing to seek treatment for Ira.
Hill had also been encouraging American friends and family to pressure US lawmakers into expediting visas.
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Ukrainian authorities issued this photo in the aftermath of an attack in Chernihiv on Thursday. It remains unclear how many died
‘There is bad luck in this world and it’s falling down all over Ukraine and it’s people now. It’s nobodies fault except the psychos in the Kremlin, one man especially.
‘His miserable existence is bad luck for everyone.’
The Chernihiv Region Police posted on Facebook on Thursday: ‘Police are documenting the consequences of enemy shelling of civilians in the center of Chernihiv.
‘Today, the occupiers once again carried out a heavy artillery attack on unarmed civilian residents of the city.
‘There are dead and wounded people. Among the dead – a US citizen.
Multiple bodies lie next to a shelled-out building in Chernihiv on Thursday after an attack from the Russian army
A residential building damaged by shelling is seen, as Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, in Chernihiv, Ukraine, in this handout picture released March 17, 2022
Chernihiv is in north west Ukraine, next to the Belarus border
‘Police officers are helping to evacuate affected citizens to medical facilities.
‘Chernihiv police investigators are working at the scene. Law enforcement officers are carefully documenting all the circumstances and consequences of Russian war crimes.’
The Facebook-automated translation mistakenly said ‘citizens’ had been killed. The State Department has not yet verified the report but said is aware.
In the last 24 hours, more than 50 people died in Chernihiv from shelling. Among them were 10 people who were in a bread line when they were shot at by Russian troops.
Russia denied any involvement in those deaths. On Sunday, American journalist Brent Renaud was killed while filming refugees in Irpin.
Since then, Irish FOX News cameraman Pierre Zakrewski and Ukrainian producer Oleksandra Kuvshynova have also been killed.
President Biden promised in February to respond harshly if Putin attacks US citizens but he is yet to change tactics.
The President is due to speak with Chinese President Xi Jinping tomorrow to discuss sanctions it too will face if it helps Russia with the war.
Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invoked Martin Luther King as he gave an impassioned speech to congress from his bunker in Kyiv.
He begged Biden to ‘be the leader of peace’ and said the 22 days had been his country’s ‘9/11’.
‘I am addressing the President Biden. You are the leader of the nation, of your great nation.
‘I wish you be the leader of the world. Being the leader of the world means to be the leader of peace,’ he told members in the sobering address to Congress.
Biden, speaking afterwards, announced an $800million military assistance package. He also, for the first time on Wednesday, called Russian President Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal.’
‘I think he is a war criminal,’ Biden said to reporters at the White House.
Source: Daily Mail
