Pasha Lee, a talented Ukrainian actor and TV host, was killed in action while Russian forces bombed the village of Irpin west of Kyiv.
In the early days of the battle, Lee, 33, enlisted in Ukraine’s territory defense force.
He was born and raised in Irpin, and his voice may be heard in the Ukrainian adaptations of The Lion King and The Hobbit.
He is one of several public personalities that died as a result of the Russian invasion.
According to Ukrainian sources, investigative journalist Viktor Dudar was killed on the front lines during a skirmish with Russian soldiers near the southern city of Mykolaiv.
Pavlo Li, as the actor was officially named, was born in Crimea in 1988 and had lately started hosting a show on Dom TV, a Ukrainian station aimed at viewers in the eastern regions seized by Russian-backed rebels in 2014.
Yulia Ostrovska, the chief of the channel, told Ukraine’s national union of journalists that he was the “most happy and bright” of the show’s presenters.
Lee appeared on the TV talent programs Star Factory and X-Factor, as well as in a number of films, including the 2016 film SelfieParty, about four students who wake up in a police station after a night out, unsure of how they got there.
He debuted as a young actor in 2006 in the teen horror film The Pit, although he most recently appeared in the comedy Meeting of Classmates.
Irpin, a village 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Kyiv where he resided, has been blasted by Russian artillery for days, resulting in heartbreaking sights of death, damage, and families fleeing.
On Tuesday, residents of Irpin and the north-eastern city of Sumy were permitted to leave as part of a Russian evacuation corridor, which led to the central city of Poltava.
Pasha Lee shared a link to a Ukrainian refugee organization a few days before he was slain, encouraging others to either contact them for support or volunteer.
In his farewell Instagram post, he shared a photo of himself and a coworker with the upbeat remark that “we’ll be OK and everything will be fine in Ukraine.”
