Dmitro Kutsubilo dreamed of going to art school.

Instead he spent nearly all his adult life on the battlefield fighting for Ukraine.

That's where his life was taken last week.

He was 27 years old.

Remember Dmitro today said Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky in a video address,

eternal memory to the heroes.

Kutsubilo's life traced Ukraine's struggle for sovereignty over the past decade.

As a teenager he demonstrated against a Russian-backed president in Kiev's Maidan Square.

Then he joined the Ukrainian army to fight against separatists in the east.

At 21 he became the country's youngest military commander.

Many Ukrainians knew him by his call sign, Da Vinci.

Thousands turned out for his funeral in Kiev.

One of them was 25-year-old Karina Nikolayva who brought her 5-year-old son.

I want to show my child how everything starts and how it ends in Ukraine right now.

I grew up forced to glorify old heroes from a foreign state.

I want him to understand what it means to be a real patriot.

Da Vinci was killed in the battle for Bakmut.

It's a small city in the east of the country.

For the moment it's still controlled by Ukraine but Russia has been slowly closing in over months of grueling fighting.

The city itself has been devastated.

Videos posted on social media show Block after block of sheld and collapsed buildings,

heaps of smoldering rubble.

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