2024-02-17 06:56:54
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Prague confirmed the death of the fourth Czech volunteer who went to Ukraine to fight against the Russian occupiers. We do not know exactly how many Czechs joined the war on the side of Kiev, more than 150 people applied for permission. Even Germany does not have an accurate overview. Diana Wagnerová, a thirty-six-year-old nurse, also belonged to the volunteers from this country.
Her comrades-in-arms and friends said goodbye to her on her last journey in Kyiv on Wednesday. A German woman died on January 30 during Russian shelling near the town of Svyatov in northeastern Ukraine.
She herself once explicitly said that she wished to be buried in Ukraine. The farewell took place in Kyiv’s Orthodox Church of St. Michael, known for its light blue color.
The funeral of the German nurse Diana Wagner in Kyiv. | Photo: Reuters
“She chose Ukraine as her home and saved dozens of lives. At the end of her earthly journey, she looks God in the eyes. Come say goodbye to our warrior,” soldiers from the 49th Independent Battalion of Karpatská Síč, where Wagner worked as a medic, wrote on social networks. Her call sign was Zmija (Serpent).
Diana Wagner lived in Ukraine before the Russian invasion in February 2022, so she knew Ukrainian. Later, in an interview with German radio station Deutsche Welle, she stated that she had no war experience and did not even really know what a platoon was or what a mortar looked like.
From the beginning, she was involved in humanitarian aid and also accompanied foreign journalists in and around Kyiv. When, she says, she saw the consequences of the Russian occupation, she decided to join the Ukrainian army as a medic. With the Karpatská Síč battalion, it moved directly to the front line. She experienced fierce fighting for the city of Izjum.
“We met in the basement of the school, soaked in the smell of mold, gunpowder, cigarette smoke, sweat and blood,” described her comrade Ruslan Adrijko. According to him, she accompanied the Karpatská Síč battalion for the entire two years of the war and saved many soldiers with timely treatment. When she was hit by a Russian shell on February 2 this year, she was going to two wounded volunteers from Colombia.
“We will never forget you, your heroism. Ukraine will forever be grateful for your sacrifice,” Andrijko wrote on Facebook. Wagner herself avoided social media and did not have a Facebook or Telegram account.
Russian media also reported on Wagner’s death. Rosijska Gazeta called her a “German mercenary”, neutralized by the Russian army. He mistakenly stated that she was twenty-six years old.
Wagner died less than a year after Jana Rychlická, a very well-known 29-year-old Ukrainian paramedic, nicknamed the Angel with pigtails, died at the front. The Russians hit a moving ambulance in which it was treating a wounded soldier on March 3, 2023 near Bakhmut.
Last year, on May 23, a Czech medic, performing under the nickname Taylor, died. He was injured while rescuing Ukrainian soldiers near Bachmut, and died two months later in Prague’s Central Military Hospital.
Video: Cucumbers mean mortars, carrots mean grenade launchers.
“Cucumbers” means mortars, “carrots” is code for grenade launchers. Ukrainians decipher Russian messages | Video: Associated Press