"Olga Semidyanova was awarded the Mother-Heroine status as a mother of six children and six more adopted."
A Ukrainian army medic and mother-of-12 died a hero while battling Russian troops.
Olga Semidyanova, 48, was reportedly hit in the stomach during a fight near Donetsk in the south, the Kyiv Independent reported.
Per Business Insider, the Ukrainian Ministry for Foreign Affairs said that Semidyanova had been a medic in the Donetsk region since 2014, where Ukraine has been fighting Russian separatist forces.
"48-year-old Olga Semidyanova died in battle with Russian Armed Forces. She had been a Military Medic since 2014 in the Donetsk region. Olga Semidyanova was awarded the Mother-Heroine status as a mother of six children and six more adopted," the Tweet read.
Ukrainian news outlet Pravada Life first reported the news of Semidyanova's death, sharing how the family is unable to recover their mother's body due to the continuous battles in the surrounding areas.
"We know where my mother was killed, between which villages, but we don't know which people to contact to bring the body home, we don't even know in what condition, whether she was buried there or sent to the village for burial," her daughter Anna said.
Paying tribute to her late mother on social media, Semidyanova's daughter Sasha wrote "every year she became more beautiful and stronger in all senses. She became so strong that after the birth of 6 children she managed to raise more children of others as their own. And after 8 years of dedicated service in the most dangerous moments, my mother Samarskaya-Semidyanova Olga Alexandrovna on July 10, 1973, facing death, not abandoning her family, facing the enemy, fighting to the last gave her life."
Now, Semidyanova is being hailed as a hero by the Ukrainian government. "Even when she believed her regiment might not survive, she emphasized her desire to protect the country until the end. She is a national hero. She is a hero to me," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the country's Interior Ministry, told Sun.
Last week, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that 1,300 Ukrainian troops have been killed in the war, but the actual toll is thought to be much higher.
Disclaimer: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a developing story, and we’ll update as we learn more. Information is swiftly changing and Women Working is committed to providing the most recent and verified updates in our articles and reportage. However, considering the frequency in developments, some of the information/data in this article may have changed since the time of publication.
References:
https://twitter.com/MFA_Ukraine/status/1504359529936564226
https://life.pravda.com.ua/society/2022/03/16/247841/
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/17972528/ukrainian-mum-of-12-killed/
Cover Image Source: Twitter | MFA of Ukraine (@MFA_Ukraine)
