A farewell ceremony for 21-year-old Hungarian volunteer Benjamin Asher, who was killed in Russia's war against Ukraine, took place on Thursday at Kyiv's Independence Square, according to Hromadske.
Asher's father, fellow soldiers from the 2nd Mechanized Battalion of the Third Separate Assault Brigade, and Kyiv's Chief Rabbi Moshe Asman attended the ceremony.
The fallen volunteer will be buried at the National Military Cemetery, Hromadske reports.
Asher served as a rifleman in the 2nd Mechanized Battalion of the Third Separate Assault Brigade. Before joining Ukraine's armed forces, he was under contract with the Hungarian military.
In March 2023, he told his commander he was going to fight in Ukraine, according to Evropeyska Pravda.
During the farewell ceremony, Rabbi Asman said the young man was a hero not only of the Ukrainian and Hungarian peoples, but also of the Jewish people.
Asher was killed on May 24. His father, Asher Nathan, who lives in Canada, wanted to bury his son either in Kyiv or in Toronto.
Earlier, it became known that 27-year-old Czech citizen Jirka Kotrla was killed near Izium in Kharkiv region during the Russian-Ukrainian war.
Approximately 600 foreigners from 72 countries currently serve monthly in Ukraine's Armed Forces, with over 8,000 foreign volunteers having joined the ground forces since the full-scale invasion began. Casualty figures for foreign volunteers on the Ukrainian side remain limited and unconfirmed by official sources
