site.btaTwo Bessarabian Bulgarians from Bolhrad District Die in Ukraine War's Front in Late May

The war in Ukraine claimed the lives of two Bessarabian Bulgarians from the Bolhrad region at the end of May.

Alexander Kara, born in 1990 in the Bulgarian village of Petrovsk, Tarutino Municipality, died on May 25. He served as machine gunner in the 1st Rifle Division of the 2nd Rifle Platoon of the 3rd Rifle Company.

Another Bulgarian, Vitaly Bezhenar from the village of Kalachivka, Tarutino Municipality, died on the front in late May. He was an inspector of the State Border Guard Service, in the anti-aircraft artillery group of the border detachment. 

The Bolhrad District State Administration expressed condolences to the relatives of the deceased soldiers on the administration's website.

Odesa Province is home to the third largest community of expatriate Bulgarians, numbering more than 150,000 people, according to an official population census in Ukraine in 2001. Between 50,000 and 60,000 Bulgarians live in the provincial capital, Odesa, while others are concentrated in the districts of Bolhrad, Izmail, and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi.