Willy Joseph Cancel, an American citizen and veteran US Marine who fought in Ukraine, was killed during the Russian invasion this week, according to his family. It was 22. Cancel, who had gone to Ukraine with a force from a private military contractor company, died Monday as a member of an international brigade of soldiers fighting against Russia, his mother, Rebecca Cabrera, told CNN. Cancel, whose mother said he had been in Ukraine since last month, is believed to be the first known American to be killed in action in Ukraine. “He wanted to go because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for and he wanted to be a part of it to limit it there so that he would not come here, and that maybe our American soldiers should not be involved in that,” he said. Cabrera. Cancel’s wife of almost three years, Brittany, confirmed his death to Fox News, saying: “My husband died in Ukraine.” He told ABC News that Cancel, a Kentucky detention officer who was “willing to volunteer” to help Ukraine. He leaves behind a 7-month-old son, Anthony, according to a GoFundMe fundraising campaign for the Cancel family. “My husband was very brave and a hero,” she said. “I did not expect to be a widow at 23 or our son without a father.” Cancel’s father, Willy Cancel Jr., told the Washington Post that his son “just wanted to help.” “I’m not going to lie, I tried to tell him, ‘Hello, think about it,’” the father said. “He thought people needed help.” Cancel’s working conditions in Ukraine were still unclear until Friday. The Post could not independently confirm that he worked for a private military contractor. Asked at a news conference on Friday whether the Department of Defense was currently employing contractors in Ukraine, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said: “I do not know.” His father said the family did not yet know how his son died or where he was in Ukraine at the time. “We honestly have no idea,” said Cancel Jr. A State Department official confirmed to The Post that the agency “was aware of these reports and was closely monitoring the situation.” “Due to privacy issues, we have no further comments,” the official said. “We reiterate that US citizens should not travel to Ukraine because of the active armed conflict and the detention of US citizens in Ukraine by Russian security officials, and that US citizens in Ukraine should leave immediately if they are safe to do so using any commercial or other privately available land transport options. “ Cancel’s death was announced hours after Ukraine said five Russian missiles rocked the capital, Kiev, during a visit by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russian officials confirmed that it had hit the city, saying on Friday that it had destroyed a weapons factory. In the United States, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told lawmakers Thursday that the world has changed dramatically and said he supports Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Earlier Thursday, President Biden called on Congress to approve a $ 33 billion military and humanitarian aid package for the country. Missiles hit Kyiv during the visit of the UN leader. Russia is making slow gains in the east At least three other Americans have been killed in Ukraine since the invasion began. Serge Zevlever, a 62-year-old Ukrainian-American living in St. Louis who had helped hundreds of children from Ukraine with medical needs be adopted into American families, was shot dead by a Russian sniper outside Kyiv a few days after the invasion. The Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Award-winning American journalist Brent Renaud, 50, was fatally shot while reporting outside Kyiv on March 13. Days later, James Whitney Hill, 68, was killed while trying to find food for himself, his partner and other critically ill patients at the Chernihiv Regional Hospital in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv. The American who was killed in Ukraine was trying to feed his sick partner and others in the hospital, says the sister The International Legion, a special unit of foreign fighters set up by the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to take part in the fight against Russia, found interest from more than 20,000 volunteers and veterans from more than 50 countries in early March, Brig. General Kyrylo Budanov, commander of the ministry’s main intelligence department, told the Associated Press. The war continued to be dangerous for people from all over the world who have volunteered to fight or assist in humanitarian efforts. Russian forces have arrested two British volunteers as they tried to help three people flee Ukraine, according to a British-based non-profit organization. Dominik Byrne, co-founder of the Presidium Network, an aid group working in Ukraine, told the BBC that the men were operating independently even though they had been in contact with his aid group. The men, identified by Byrne in the Associated Press as Paul Urey and Dylan Healy, were evacuating a woman and two children from a village south of Zaporizhzhia, he said, and were heard for the last time after passing through a checkpoint on Monday. . A 25-year-old Dane who volunteered to fight for Ukraine was also killed this week in Mykolajiv, according to the Danish television network TV2. Cancel joined the Marine Corps in December 2017 as an infantry rifle, serving with the 3rd Battalion, 2nd Marines, a unit at Camp Lejeune, NC. His awards show he spent some time at sea and in South Korea, said Major Jim Stenger , representative of the service. On August 31, 2020, however, Cancel was convicted of violating a law of general order and sentenced to 154 days in jail, demotion from accountant to soldier, and acquittal. The case stemmed from the fact that Cancel carried a gun to his base, said an official familiar with the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Cancel resigned in November. A senior US defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity based on basic rules set by the Pentagon, said on Friday that the Pentagon had no information about Cancel or his actions in Ukraine, but expressed his condolences to his family. The official said the Pentagon continues to urge Americans not to go to Ukraine, “as altruistic as they are,” citing the dangers. Cancel Jr. said his son “did not tell me much” about the trip to Ukraine to fight in the war. “Just go,” the father told The Post. “[He] I kept it in silence. “ Days after his death, members of the Cancel family are now begging for his body to be located and returned to the United States. “The men who were with him are trying,” Cabrera told CNN, “but it was either to grab his body or kill him, but we would like him to come back to us. Brittany Cancel told Fox that her husband dreamed of one day becoming a police officer or firefighter in New York. Now, she hopes that she, their loved ones and their baby son can say goodbye to them. “All I want is for him to come home and make the proper burial he deserves,” he said. The Cancel family wrote in the online fundraiser that they were “just upset and … have no idea how to proceed”. They thought about how Anthony would have grown up without his dad, whom they described as “brave and selfless and whose life was lost in absurdity”. “While he will grow up knowing that his father died as a hero, we know this will not be easy,” the family wrote. “No parent should ever bury their child and no child should grow up without a parent.”
