By Kanishka Singh and Simon Lewis
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. citizen was killed in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv while waiting in a bread line amid Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, his family said on Thursday.
“My brother Jimmy Hill was killed yesterday in Chernihiv, Ukraine. He was waiting in a bread line with several other people when they were gunned down by Russian military snippers,” Hill’s sister said in a Facebook post on Thursday afternoon.
“His body was found in the street by the local police,” she wrote.
Reuters could not independently verify the circumstances leading to his death.
Hill’s own Facebook posts gave a glimpse of the situation on the frontline as he repeatedly wrote about explosions, food shortages and intense bombing during the Russian assault.
“Intense bombing! still alive. Limited food. Room very cold,” Hill said in his last Facebook post on Tuesday. In another post on the same day, he wrote that “bombing has intensified”.
A day earlier, he had written that “each day people are killed trying to escape.”
Hill’s Facebook profile identified him as a teacher at universities in Kyiv and Warsaw. He previously said on Facebook that he was in Chernihiv with his partner for her to receive medical treatment. He was a native of Minnesota.
Police in Chernihiv said earlier on Thursday that an American was among those killed by a Russian shelling, without disclosing more information.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken also confirmed that an American citizen was killed but did not offer more details.
“I can confirm that an American citizen was killed. I don’t have any more details for you than that,” Blinken told reporters in a press briefing.
Viacheslav Chaus, governor of the region centered on the front-line city of Chernihiv, said 53 civilians had been killed there in the past 24 hours. The toll could not be independently verified. Russia denies targeting civilians.
Russia has assaulted Ukraine from four directions, sending two columns toward Kyiv from the northwest and northeast, pushing in from the east near the second biggest city Kharkiv, and spreading in the south from Crimea.
Russia calls its actions in Ukraine a “special operation.”
(Reporting by Kaniska Singh and Simon Lewis; editing by Jonathan Oatis and Richard Pullin)
