'Angel Of The Fighters': Ukrainian Medic Killed Days After Being Photographed In Action

This hectic field hospital near Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine, was captured by an AP photographer on February 26. In in the foreground, a medic with braids named Yana Rykhlitska treats a wounded man.  

Rykhlitska, 29, photographed on February 22.

On March 3, five days after the AP image was published around the world, the combat medic was killed, reportedly by a Russian shell that hit the vehicle she was traveling in as she helped transport wounded people from the battlefield around Bakhmut.

A selfie posted by Rykhlitska in June 2022.

Tributes to the medic have poured in across Facebook. One friend recalled, “Yana once said, ‘While we sleep, someone dies for us.’ Yesterday, it was her.” An acquaintance who had met her at the front lines wrote that she had been dubbed the “angel of fighters.”
 

In November 2022, RFE/RL photographer Serhiy Nuzhnenko photographed the Bakhmut field hospital where Rykhlitska worked, helping a constant stream of injured Ukrainian soldiers.

Rykhlitska reportedly worked for a Kharkiv IT company that could have provided her a relatively simple escape from the war in Ukraine.

A friend wrote on March 4: "She could have chosen the easy way and left the country. She could have continued to work quietly in the company, but she chose another way -- the way of a real hero."

 

The view from a vehicle in Bakhmut on March 3, the same day Rykhlitska was reportedly killed near the embattled city.

Bakhmut has become the focal point of the war in Ukraine as Russian forces close in on the ruined eastern city, making it perhaps the most dangerous place in Ukraine.

A photo of Rykhlitska posted on her Facebook page in May 2021.

The IT worker had been active in raising money for Ukrainian fighters since the beginning of the Russian invasion in 2022. She reportedly left her IT role and began volunteering as a medic in May 2022.
 

On March 16, 2022, Rykhlitska shared a Facebook post listing women who had been killed since the Russian invasion, some of them in active combat. The post read, “If you are looking for true female heroes, please remember these women,” and declared that heroes are "those women who sacrifice their energy and resources to save, defend, treat, protect, feed, and support."

 

A selfie posted by Rykhlitska in November 2022.

A funeral for the slain medic, who would have turned 30 on April 2, will be held in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsya on March 7.