(Reuters) – Ukrainian kickboxing champion Maksym Bordus has been killed fighting Russian forces, a website that lists athletes killed in the war said on Tuesday.
Bordus was killed on June 11 in “fierce fighting against Russian invaders”, according to “Sport Angels”, a Ukrainian website set up with the assistance of the Sports Committee that brings together NGOs and federations from non-Olympic sports.
“Every day he brought Ukraine’s victory closer with a weapon in his hands, but he himself will not see it,” it wrote under a photograph of Bordus posing with several medals.
A petition was posted on President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s website calling for Bordus to be posthumously awarded the title of “Hero of Ukraine”.
Sport Angels said he had won dozens of tournaments and was the World Association of Kickboxing (WAKO) champion of Ukraine.
It said that Bordus, who was born in 2000, had signed up to fight for the Ukrainian army on the first day of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February last year.
The petition said Bordus was killed by a Russian shell while on a combat mission in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia.
Ukraine’s sports ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.
Sports Minister Vadym Huttsait said in April that 262 Ukrainian athletes had been killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
(Reporting by Anna Pruchnicka; editing by Tom Balmforth and Mark Heinrich)
