By Natalie Gallón, Nick Paton Walsh, Jennifer Hansler and Teele Rebane, May 1, 2023
A former US Marine, Cooper “Harris” Andrews, 26, was killed on the outskirts of Bakhmut late last week, according to his mother and colleagues in Ukraine.
Andrews, from Cleveland, Ohio, was hit by a mortar, his mother, Willow Andrews said, likely on April 19 on the so-called “Road of Life” – a rare access road into Bakhmut used by the Ukrainian military to resupply their forces but also evacuate civilians.
Andrew’s body has yet to be recovered, she said, owing to the ongoing fighting around the city, whose outsized symbolic importance has led to intense fighting as Moscow desperately tries to seize it.
