On the morning of 1 January 2025, a Russian drone attack on Kyiv claimed the lives of a prominent Ukrainian neurobiologist Ihor Zyma and a scientist and Doctor of Biological Sciences Olesia Sokur. The couple was killed in their bed at home along with their cat.
On New Year’s Day, Russian forces launched 111 drones on Ukraine, with Ukrainian Air Defense intercepting 63 out of them. Drone debris fell in two districts of Kyiv – Pechersk and Sviatoshynsky. In the Pechersk district, drone debris caused a fire in the mansard floor of a five-story residential building.
The Kyiv City Military Administration reported that two people died under the rubble from the drone strike but did not specify their names or positions. However, later Minister of Education and Science Oksen Lisovyi confirmed that it was Ihor Zyma and Olesia Sokur.
The family dedicated almost their entire lives to science, working for many years at the Institute of Biology and Medicine of the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv.
Olesia was the Deputy Director for Research and headed the Research Laboratory of Physico-Chemical Biology at the Institute.
Ihor’s research focused on studying the mechanisms of human brain cognitive activity, emotions, attention and decision-making systems, electrophysiology of neural networks, and neuropsychology.
He also worked at a private medical center that deals with the diagnosis and treatment of comorbidities in people with autism and other developmental differences.
In total, seven people were injured in the Russian New Year’s attack, including two pregnant women.
The deaths of Zyma and Sokur are a tragic loss for the Ukrainian scientific community. The couple dedicated their lives to advancing an understanding of the human brain and its functions.
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