Zelenskiy leads tribute for deceased Ukrainian fighter

STORY: The 27-year-old, whose unit is called Da Vinci's Wolves, was killed this week in Bakhmut, the eastern Ukrainian city that has since August experienced the deadliest fighting of the war and remains fiercely contested.

Zelenskiy appeared with visiting Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin at the ornate, golden-domed St. Michael's Cathedral in central Kyiv to lay flowers on Kotsiubailo's coffin.

Later, hundreds of people gathered in the nearby Independence Square.

Kotsiubailo was made a "Hero of Ukraine" by Zelenskiy in 2022, before Russia's full-scale invasion, for his role in fighting pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine since the start of the armed conflict in 2014.