'Very special' Brit volunteer killed in Ukraine after a year on the frontline
A British volunteer fighter tasked with wiping out Vladimir Putin's forces has been killed in action after a year on the frontline.
Bristolian Jay Morais was involved in intensive street fighting in the Donbas cities of Severodonetsk and Bakhmut, the Telegraph reported.
Ukraine’s International Legion, the multi-national fighting force set up by President Volodymyr Zelensky last year, confirmed the 52-year-old's death on Tuesday night.
"Sadly, Jay Morais has died in the line of duty," a spokesman said while declining to provide further details.
It is understood that Mr Morais died in a hospital in Kharkiv after being in combat with Russian troops further east in late February.
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Bristolian Jay Morais was on Ukraine’s frontlines (jaymorais12/Instagram)
"Sadly, Jay Morais has died in the line of duty", a spokesman said (jaymorais12/Instagram)His Ukrainian fiancee Lidiya Martynova said he was given a funeral in Ukraine with military honours, and his body was cremated. Half his ashes were laid by his fiancee at a cemetery in Kyiv and the other half sent home to relatives in Britain.
The 34-year-old told The Telegraph: “Jay was a very special guy, beautiful and crazy at the same time.
"He was a professional soldier, but he would always say that it wasn’t important how many enemies he’d killed, but how many people he’d saved.
"I still can’t really believe he is dead. He was planning to stay here in Ukraine once the war was over to start a new life here.”
Mr Morais previously spent time in the French Foreign Legion, serving in Kosovo and the Ivory Coast, but prior to that he lived in Bristol as a sales manager for mobile phone firm Three.
Tony Hackett, a former colleague at Three, told the Telegraph that Mr Morais was a keep-fit enthusiast who would cycle 20 miles a day to work.
He said: "He was a good guy, and when the war started, he just felt he had to help, given the training he’d had in the Foreign Legion."
“Your adrenalin is just flying so high, you are either absolutely on it or s--- scared. It is not about being brave, you are just wired differently, and you don’t really know how you are going to react", Mr Morias told the Telegraph last summer.
His death is believed to be the fifth British citizen to have died while serving as a volunteer with Ukraine’s armed forces
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