Ukrainian conductor Yuri Kerpatenko was shot dead by Russian soldiers “in his own home” in Kherson, a southern Ukrainian city occupied since the start of the conflict, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture announced on Saturday.
This “brutal murder”, revealed by the media on Friday, was committed because of “Kerpatenko’s refusal to cooperate with the occupiers”, the ministry added in a press release.
planned concert
He had worked at the Kherson Regional Philharmonic since 2000, and in 2004 he became director of the Kherson Musical and Drama Theater named after Mykola Koulich, the same source said.
“Yuri Kerpatenko openly declared his positions and refused to leave the occupied Kherson,” the Ministry of Culture continued.
“According to media reports, on the occasion of International Music Day on October 1, the squatters and their collaborators from the Philharmonic Orchestra were planning a festive concert in Kherson,” the source said.
The Russians “wanted this concert to be a demonstration of the so-called ‘restoration of peaceful life’ in Kherson. However, the conductor of the orchestra, Yuri Kerpatenko, categorically refused to cooperate with the occupiers,” the ministry explained.
Russia announced on Thursday that it would organize the evacuation to its territory of the population of the Kherson region, claiming to respond to a request from the local occupation authorities threatened by the advance of the Ukrainian army’s counteroffensive.
Source: BFM TV
