St. Catharines, Ont., man killed in Ukraine was 'effervescent,' 'hard-charging' and a 'total professional'
CBC
Cole Zelenco, a St. Catharines, Ont., resident killed last week by Russian artillery fire, was "effervescent" and "hard-charging," and a "total professional" on the battlefield, says a fellow Canadian who met the 21-year-old in Ukraine's International Legion.
Walter Wood, a Canadian Armed Forces officer who spent time fighting in Ukraine last year, told CBC Radio's The Current that Zelenco "always had a good sense of humour" and "was one of the better soldiers we had over there when I was there.
"I've had my friends that are still over there fighting contact me and they're devastated by the loss," said Wood, a Canadian military veteran who lives in Ottawa.
He said the intensity of the fighting has created strong bonds between colleagues there in a short amount of time, and that the losses of Zelenco and Kyle Porter, 27, of Calgary, would weigh heavily on their peers.
"Even in the short period of time I was over there, we formed bonds of brotherhood and fellowship that rival even my experiences of 36 years in the Canadian Army," Wood said.
Zelenco and Porter, both members of the International Legion's 92nd Mechanised Brigade, died in the same attack April 26, while trying to protect a major supply route into Bakhmut, a besieged eastern Ukrainian city.
The unit has been bearing the brunt of a ferocious Ukrainian effort to hold Bakhmut against a determined Russian attack. The Donbas-region city has been the site of the longest-running and bloodiest battle of the war, with thousands — if not tens of thousands — of casualties on both sides.
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