An honor guard fired a three-gun salute into the cloudy sky as friends and fellow fighters gathered in Kyiv to say goodbye to a Russian woman killed while fighting on Ukraine’s side in the war with her homeland. Olga Simonova, 34, was remembered for her courage and kindness at a funeral in the Ukrainian capital on Friday. Simonova’s coffin was draped in the blue-and-yellow flag of Ukraine, with a cute lion on top. Her name was ‘Simba’, like the main character in the Disney cartoon ‘The Lion King’. Just days before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, Simonova spoke to The Associated Press in a trench in the Donbas region, where she had served for years alongside Ukrainian soldiers fighting against Russian-backed separatists. Born in the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, Simonova had a keen interest in sports and excelled in both mountain climbing and karate. She said she was always proud to play for Russia. But she began to feel uneasy about her homeland after reading about Russia’s war in Chechnya and its actions in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region and Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Filled with doubts that she “could ever raise the flag of my country, my homeland” again, Simonova made a life-changing decision. He traveled to Ukraine to participate in the Donbass conflict on the Ukrainian side, first as a volunteer fighter, then as a paramedic and finally as a conscripted member of the Armed Forces. “I had this inner feeling that I could handle it and that what I was doing was right and necessary, because I can’t turn a blind eye to the situation,” he said. “I just had to buy a one-way ticket. I bought it and left.” Simonova said she never hid her Russian origins from her colleagues and earned their trust by showing her commitment to Ukraine on the battlefield. In 2017, he received Ukrainian citizenship. She became a sergeant and was given command of infantry and artillery units. Friends and colleagues said Simonova, who was single and had no children, had recently been redeployed from the east to the southern Kherson region, where Ukraine has launched a counteroffensive against Russian forces. They said she died on September 13 after her vehicle hit a landmine. “She was respected not only as a commander, but also as a person,” said Dmytro Karabinovsky, her former commander and friend.
