Ukrainian Actress Oksana Shvets Reportedly Killed in Russian Rocket Attack: 'No Forgiveness'
Kyiv Post/Twitter
A beloved actress from Ukraine, Oksana Shvets, was killed in the capital city of Kyiv during a Russian rocket attack, according to the theater where she worked and was a troupe member.
She was reportedly 67.
Shvets was part of the Young Theater community, which expressed grief and anger over the loss of a member of its "family" on Facebook on Thursday.
"During the rocket shelling of a residential building in Kyiv a well-deserved artist of Ukraine Oksana Shvets was killed," the theater said in a translated post. "Bright memory to the talented actress! There is no forgiveness for the enemy that has come to our land!"
(Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilian sites — nonetheless, hundreds of them have become casualties in the cross-hairs.)
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According to Deadline, designating Shvets as a "well-deserved artist" refers to her accomplishment of earning a Merited Artist of Ukraine badge, one of the country's highest honors for the performing arts.
The Kyiv Post, an English-language newspaper based in Ukraine, also reported Shvets' death on Twitter on Thursday.
"The actress of the Young Theatre Oksana Shvets has been murdered in Kyiv during the war," the outlet wrote.
Shvets graduated from an actors' studio at the Ivan Franko Theater and the Kiev State Institute of Theater Arts. Shvets performed at the Ternopil Music and Drama Theater and the Kiev Theater of Satire in addition to her work at Young Theater, Deadline reports.
The Hollywood Reporter called her a "veteran of stage and screen for decades in Ukraine."
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The fighting there continues some three weeks after Russian forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades.
Details change by the day, but hundreds of civilians have already been reported dead or wounded, including children.
"You don't know where to go, where to run, who you have to call. This is just panic," Liliya Marynchak, a 45-year-old teacher in Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, told PEOPLE of the moment her city was bombed — one of numerous accounts of bombardment by the Russians.
The invasion, ordered by Putin, has drawn condemnation around the world and increasingly severe economic sanctions against Russia.
With NATO forces massing in the region around Ukraine, various countries have also pledged aid or military support to the resistance. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
"Nobody is going to break us, we're strong, we're Ukrainians," he told the European Union in a speech in the early days of the fighting, adding, "Life will win over death. And light will win over darkness."
The Russian attack on Ukraine is an evolving story, with information changing quickly. Follow PEOPLE's complete coverage of the war here, including stories from citizens on the ground and ways to help.
