U.S. citizen Willy Cancel is killed fighting in Ukraine, family says
“He wanted to go over because he believed in what Ukraine was fighting for, and he wanted to be a part of it to contain it there so it didn’t come here, and that maybe our American soldiers wouldn’t have to be involved in it,” Cabrera said.
Cancel’s wife of nearly three years, Brittany, confirmed his death to Fox News, saying, “My husband did die in Ukraine.” She told ABC News that Cancel, a detention officer in Kentucky who was “eager to volunteer” to help Ukraine, leaves behind a 7-month-old son.
“My husband was very brave and a hero,” she said. “I did not expect to be a widow at 23 years old or for our son to be without a father.”
Family members did not immediately respond to requests for comment early Friday. It remains unclear how he died or where in Ukraine he was at the time.
A State Department official confirmed to The Washington Post that the agency was “aware of these reports and are closely monitoring the situation.”
“Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment,” the official said. “We once again reiterate U.S. citizens should not travel to Ukraine due to the active armed conflict and the singling out of U.S. citizens in Ukraine by Russian government security officials, and that U.S. citizens in Ukraine should depart immediately if it is safe to do so using any commercial or other privately available ground transportation options.”
Cancel’s death was announced hours after Ukraine said five Russian missiles rocked the capital of Kyiv during a visit by United Nations Secretary General António Guterres with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russian officials confirmed it struck the city, saying Friday that it had destroyed an arms factory.
In the U.S., Secretary of State Antony Blinken told lawmakers Thursday that the world had changed dramatically and declared support for Finland and Sweden joining NATO. Earlier in the day, President Biden asked Congress to approve a $33 billion spending package with military and humanitarian aid for the country.
At least three other American citizens have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the invasion. Serge Zevlever, a 62-year-old Ukrainian American living in St. Louis who had helped hundreds of children from Ukraine with medical needs get adopted into American families, was killed by a Russian sniper outside Kyiv just days into the invasion, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Award-winning American journalist Brent Renaud, 50, was fatally shot while reporting outside Kyiv on March 13. Days later, James Whitney Hill, 68, was killed while trying to obtain food for himself, his partner and other very ill patients at Chernihiv Regional Hospital in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.
The International Legion, a special unit of foreign fighters created by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry who wanted to join the fight against Russia, found interest from more than 20,000 volunteers and veterans from more than 50 countries in early March, Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, commander of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ministry, told the Associated Press.
The war has continued to be dangerous for people from all over the world who have volunteered to fight or assist in humanitarian efforts. Russian forces captured two British volunteers as they were trying to help three people leave Ukraine, according to a U.K.-based nonprofit. Dominik Byrne, a co-founder of the Presidium Network, an aid group working in Ukraine, told the BBC that the men were operating independently although they had been in contact with his aid group. The men, who were identified by Byrne to the Associated Press as Paul Urey and Dylan Healy, were conducting an evacuation of a woman and two children from a village south of Zaporizhzhia, he said, and were last heard from after passing through a checkpoint Monday.
A 25-year-old Dane who volunteered to fight for Ukraine was also killed this week in Mykolajiv, according to Danish broadcaster TV2.
Days after his death, Cancel’s family members are now pleading for his body to be located and returned to the United States.
“They are trying, the men that were with him,” Cabrera told CNN, “but it was either grab his body or get killed, but we would love for him to come back to us.”
Brittany Cancel told Fox that her husband had dreams of one day becoming a police officer or a New York City firefighter. Now, she’s hoping that she, their loved ones and infant son can say goodbye.
“All I want is for him to come home, and to give him the proper burial he deserves,” she said.