The war in Ukraine claims a third French combatant victim.
According to information from Le
Monde
, a French volunteer named Andreas Gallozzi was killed in the Luhansk region (Donbass) on Thursday February 16.
Aged 22, this native of Dijon "
was on a defense post
", when "
a Russian artillery fire would have destroyed his position
", according to one of the sources of our colleagues.
According to France 3 Bourgogne, which collected the testimony of his mother, the young man was hit in the neck by shrapnel.
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Before him, two other Frenchmen have died in combat since February 24, 2022, the date of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Wilfried Blériot, 32, and Adrien Dugay-Leyoudec, 20, died of Russian artillery fire last June on the Kharkiv front.
The army "
in the genes
"
Andreas Gallozzi joined the International Legion, where most foreigners fight.
He left his job as a stretcher-bearer in a clinic in Dijon to go to the front shortly after the outbreak of war, despite his mother's attempts to dissuade him, reports France 3. When he came of age, he had joined the 17th parachute engineer regiment of Montauban.
According to the testimony of his mother to France 3, the young man had always been attracted by the military universe.
He had hit his first target at the age of seven, during an open door operation in a barracks.
“
He had that in his genes
,” she recalls.
A "
heroic
" fighter
If she let him go to Ukraine reluctantly, Edith Gallozzi says "
not regret
" today.
“
It was his goal, his reason for living
, she explains to our colleagues.
I knew I had a one in two chance of losing him, but I respected his choice
.
The dreaded day has finally arrived, nearly a year after the war began.
On February 16, she was joined by the International Legion.
She knows that “
something serious
” has happened, but hopes that an injury will be announced to her.
"
Sorry ma'am, but he's dead
," whispers his interlocutor.
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According to one of his comrades in arms contacted by
Le Monde
, Andreas Gallozzi was calm and courageous by nature.
“
A heroic act
” even earned him a decoration in Ukraine: he allegedly, according to his comrade, destroyed a Russian tank using an old RPG-7 grenade launcher last September.