Two Bessarabian Bulgarians from Bolhrad District have died at the war front in Ukraine. Alexander Kara from the Bulgarian village of Petrovsk in the Tarutyne Municipality was born in 1990. He served as a machine gunner and died on May 25. Another Bulgarian, Vitaly Bezhenar from the village of Kalachivka, Tarutyne Municipality, died on the front in late May. He was an inspector of the State Border Guard Service, in the anti-aircraft artillery unit of a border detachment. 

The Bolhrad Regional State Administration expressed condolences to the families of the deceased soldiers, reported BTA.

Bulgarians in Odesa Province number more than 150,000 and are the third-largest ethnic group in the region according to Ukraine’s 2001 national census. Between 50,000 and 60,000 Bulgarians live in the city of Odesa, while others are concentrated in the districts of Bolhrad, Izmail and Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi, reported BTA.

Published and translated by Kostadin Atanasov

Photo:  bolgradsovet.com.ua