Parents of infant who died in wrong-way crash on Ontario's Hwy. 401 were in same vehicle
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Poppies, the blood-red flowers that cover the battlefields of Europe's two world wars, were lain in mourning Saturday on the coffin of yet another dead soldier, this one killed in yet another European war, in Ukraine.
The hundreds of mourners for Roman Ratushnyi, 24, included friends who had protested with him during months of demonstrations that toppled Ukraine's pro-Russia leader in 2014 and who, like him, took up arms when Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour this February.
The arc of his shortened life symbolized that of Ukraine's post-independence generations that are sacrificing their best years in the cause of freedom. First, with defiance and dozens of lives against brutal riot police during Ukraine's Maidan protests of 2013-2014 and now with weapons and even more lives against Russian President Vladimir Putin's troops.
"Heroes never die!" friends, family and admirers shouted in Ukrainian as Ratushnyi's coffin was loaded aboard a hearse on a square in the Ukrainian capital now decorated with destroyed Russian tanks and vehicles. Their charred hulks contrasted with the shiny gold domes of an adjacent cathedral where priests had earlier sung prayers for Ratushnyi, who was well-known in Kyiv for his civic and environmental activism.
From the square, the mourners then walked in a long silent column behind his coffin to Maidan Nezalezhnosti, or Independence Square. The vast plaza in central Kyiv gave its name to the three months of protests that overthrew then President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014 and which helped fuel the political and patriotic awakening of Ukrainians born after independence in 1991.
Ratushnyi had "a heart full of love for Ukraine," said Misha Reva, who traveled overnight in his soldier's uniform from front lines in the east to say goodbye to the friend he met for the first time on Maidan, in the midst of the protests. Ratushnyi was then just 16; Reva was in his early 20s. It was Ratushnyi who introduced Reva to the woman who is now his wife, also on the square.
While the funeral was underway in central Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a trip south to visit troops defending the front line in the Mykolaiv region. He handed out awards to men and women in camouflage, shaking their hands.
"I thank each and every one of you, for the great work, for the great service, for what you do protecting our country, each of us, our families," Zelenskyy said in what appeared to be the basement of a building.
He also visited the city of Mykolaiv, on the Black Sea coast, where he met with the governor and went to see the ruins of the administration building, which was destroyed by Russian shelling in April that killed at least 34 people.
In other developments Saturday, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson expressed concerns "that a bit of Ukraine fatigue is starting to set in around the world" and said Ukraine must be supported in trying to roll back the Russian invasion to "make sure the Ukrainians are not encouraged to go for a bad peace, something that simply wouldn't endure."
"It would be a catastrophe if Putin won. He'd love nothing more than to say, `Let's freeze this conflict, let's have a cease-fire,"' Johnson said. "For him that would be a tremendous victory. You'd have a situation in which Putin was able to consolidate his gains and then to launch another attack."
Johnson spoke on his return from a surprise trip Friday to Kyiv where he met with Zelenskyy to offer continued aid and military training.
Western-supplied heavy weapons are reaching front lines, although not in quantities that Ukrainian officials say would be needed to push back Russian forces to positions they occupied before the invasion or beyond. The Associated Press was granted rare access Saturday to the firing of U.S.-supplied M777 howitzers on Russian positions in Ukraine's eastern Donbas region. The powerful artillery pieces are helping Ukrainian forces reply in kind to Russian batteries that have been pounding towns and villages to rubble.
In Kyiv. the bells of St. Michael's cathedral tolled as four soldiers carried Ratushnyi's coffin to the memorial service Saturday morning, held outdoors in the church's sunlit courtyard. Poppies and a traditional loaf of bread were placed on the coffin covered with Ukraine's blue and yellow flag.
During the Maidan protests, where riot police used batons and eventually bullets with deadly abandon, Ratushnyi and Reva had taken shelter together for one night inside the cathedral grounds, the friend recalled.
"He was such a solid and big personality," Reva said. "It's a great loss for Ukraine."
The friends then signed up to fight on the very first day of the Russian invasion on Feb. 24. After taking part in the defence of Kyiv in the assault's opening weeks, Ratushnyi then joined an army brigade, doing military intelligence work, Reva said. Reva said he's been fighting of late in positions away from where Ratushnyi was killed. Reva, 33, said two soldiers were killed and 15 wounded Thursday where he's been stationed.
"People get killed every day on the front line," he said.
Ratushnyi was killed on June 9 around the town of Izyum on the war's eastern front, according to the environmental campaign group that he led in Kyiv. He fought for the preservation from development of a wooded park where people ski in winter.
"He was a symbol, a symbol of a new Ukraine, of freedom and a new generation that wants to fight for its rights," said Serhli Sasyn, 21.
The "best people are dying now."
------
Efrem Lukatsky in the Donbas region of Ukraine, and Inna Varenytsia in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed to this report.
-----
Do you have any questions about the attack on Ukraine? Email dotcom@bellmedia.ca.
Ontario’s Special Investigations Unit has released new details about a wrong-way collision in Whitby on Monday night that claimed the lives of four people.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
A spike in impaired driving-related collisions has caused Ontario’s provincial police to begin enforcing mandatory alcohol screening (MAS) at all traffic stops in the Greater Toronto Area -- a move one civil rights group says is ‘not acceptable.’
William Nylander scored twice and Joseph Woll made 22 saves as the Toronto Maple Leafs downed the Boston Bruins 2-1 on Thursday to force Game 7 in their first-round series.
Jurors in the hush money trial of Donald Trump heard a recording Thursday of him discussing with his then-lawyer and personal fixer a plan to purchase the silence of a Playboy model who has said she had an affair with the former president.
Staff at a small southern Alberta office supply store were shocked to find someone had broken into the business last week, but they were even more confused when they discovered the culprit was a bear.
A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a scuba dive boat captain to four years in custody and three years supervised release for criminal negligence after 34 people died in a fire aboard the vessel.
Fake text message and email campaigns trying to get money and information out of unsuspecting Canadian taxpayers have started circulating, just months after the federal government rebranded the carbon tax rebate the Canada Carbon Rebate.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.
Since 1932, Montreal's Henri Henri has been filled to the brim with every possible kind of hat, from newsboy caps to feathered fedoras.
Police in Oak Bay, B.C., had to close a stretch of road Sunday to help an elephant seal named Emerson get safely back into the water.
Out of more than 9,000 entries from over 2,000 breweries in 50 countries, a handful of B.C. brews landed on the podium at the World Beer Cup this week.
Raneem, 10, lives with a neurological condition and liver disease and needs Cholbam, a medication, for a longer and healthier life.
The lawyer for a residential school survivor leading a proposed class-action defamation lawsuit against the Catholic Church over residential schools says the court action is a last resort.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.