A 26-year-old U.S. Marine veteran was killed last week on the outskirts of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut while attempting to help civilians escape the massacre, based on his family and associates.
Cooper “Harris” Andrews of Cleveland, Ohio, was hit by a mortar shell, possibly on April 19, his mother, Willow Andrews told CNNbringing the variety of U.S. residents killed because the war broke out in February 2022 to at the least nine.
Andrews worked for an anti-authoritarian collective called the Resistance Committee, which confirmed that he died helping to evacuate civilians from a war-ravaged city in eastern Ukraine.
As of Monday, Andrews’ body has not been recovered as a result of intense fighting in the world.
Nicknamed “the meat grinder”, Bakhmut witnessed a number of the bloodiest battles of the war between the Ukrainian defenders of the town and the forces of Moscow, who had been desperately attempting to capture it for months.
Andrews left his hometown in November to affix the International Legion in Ukraine, which is made up of individuals from all over the world fighting alongside Kyiv’s regulars.
His contract with the organization reportedly expired in March, but his mother said he selected to remain in Ukraine as a volunteer.
Previously, Andrews served in the Marine Corps from 2017-2022 as a maintenance technician for ground electronic transmission systems, based on an official service record provided to military information service Task and purpose.
Independent journalist Jake Hanrahan described Andrews in a tweet as “an excellent man and a sort soul”. Him too shared a photograph that the 26-year-old Marine veteran sent to a friend, showing him swinging a sledgehammer while puffing on a cigarette.
In a message attached to the selfie, Andrews wrote: “If I turn into a martyr, remember me with my hammer.”
Without naming Andrews, the U.S. State Department said on Monday it could “confirm the death of a U.S. citizen in Ukraine.”
“We’re in contact with the family and are providing all possible consular assistance,” a State Department spokesman said.
The news of Andrews’ death comes just weeks after it was revealed that two US military veterans, 22-year-old Edward Wilton and 50-year-old Grady Kurpasi, had been killed in motion in Ukraine.
Like Andrews, Wilton of Marianna, Florida, was killed by enemy soldiers while assisting in Bakhmut’s defense on April 7.