The story of Tato, for 20 years in Italy he has died as a volunteer in Ukraine

In Piacenza he had his home, his job and his family.

But when he heard the call of his homeland Ukraine in trouble, he decided to leave as a volunteer for the front where he met his death.

was hit by a Russian rocket in the Donbass on 20 January and is buried, after the state funeral, in the monumental cemetery of Campo di Marte in Lviv.

    The Piacenza newspaper Libertà tells the story of Bohdan: since 2000, when he was a teenager, he had settled with his mother in Piacenza, where he had found work first in logistics, then as a truck driver and where he had built his family, together with his wife , his compatriot known in Emilia, and two daughters born in Italy.

    Bohdan had never taken up a weapon and had not even done military service, until February 24, 2022, his life went on very normal, between work and family.

"It is as if he had heard the call of his homeland in difficulty - his wife Natalia tells Libertà - at the beginning I did not accept this choice of his. Now I hope that the war will end so I can go with our daughters to celebrate the victory of the Ukraine on his grave, for us he is a hero".

    In fact, a few days after the start of the war, Bohdan left his stable job and left as a volunteer for Ukraine where, after a period of training and in the logistics departments, he found himself fighting on the front lines.

    In November he was wounded in Kramatorsk, Donbass.

    Hospitalized, and after a period of rehabilitation, he decided to go back to fighting.

In a few days from the rear, also due to the loss of men in the outposts, he found himself in what the Ukrainians call the 'zero point', or the very first line where the armies face each other.

On 20 January a rocket fired by Russian artillery hit him inexorably and he died instantly.

    The family was informed the following day, a few days later the daughters wrote him a letter affectionately calling him 'Tato' as they used to do at home.

    Together with the letter also a drawing with his portrait and with the inscription, in Cyrillic, 'Come on, dad'.

    Natalia and Bodhan met in Piacenza in 2005 and got married shortly after.

"We had our job - says the woman - a family like many others, with our daughters who are from Piacenza to all intents and purposes. At first I tried to dissuade him from his decision to leave and it was a bit like feeling abandoned: why risk your life when you have everything here? In one of the last phone calls he told us that there was hell. But I think deep down he felt he was in the right place".

    "My daughters - continues Natalia - continue to cry.

    I am trying to make them understand how generous and courageous their father was. This war is tragic and we would also like people to understand how much there is a need for the support of the Europe to push back the