JANUARY 12, 1977 — APRIL 26, 2023
46 YEARS, FIXER
Bohdan was lying still, face down, on the asphalt of Antonivskyi bridge in the Kherson region. He was shot dead by russian snipers, when he was in Kherson on a journalistic mission with La Repubblica’s correspondent Corrado Zunino. Bohdan was a fixer, a local aid of the foreign press professionals.
Corrado was supposed to write about the Kherson residents, whose lives for the second year straight were akin to sitting on a powder keg. It was Bohdan’s intent to make the outside world feel the Ukrainian sorrow.
The right bank of Kherson is a strictly prohibited zone, which is officially deemed “hot”. The fixer and the reporter walked into it, and they did so twice. With no relevant paperwork. The Ukrainian military stopped them in the vicinity of the bridge, and strictly forbade them to move further.
Bohdan and Corrado abandoned their vehicle and tried to navigate around the Ukrainian checkpoint. They were spotted once again, and the stern «Go away!» was shouted at them, in an attempt to force them to leave the location. As the two were retreating, the russians opened fire from the left bank of the city. The journalists’ car was shot at later. For some reason, Bohdan left his bulletproof vest and the helmet behind, back in the car.
As Bohdan was facing the russian-controlled territories, he was struck by the first bullet, collapsing him to the ground. The second bullet seared Corrado’s shoulder. This happened on April 26, 2023.
The fallen fixer had a wife, Erlia, of Indonesian Chinese origin, and a 21-year-old son, Oleksandr. Since the arrival of their firstborn, the Bitik family had been residing in Indonesia, where they had a small business of manufacturing rattan furniture. By 2010, this family was the largest supplier of this service in Ukraine. The business had been growing less relevant in the recent years, with Bohdan working in Vietnam as a kitesurfing instructor.
Bohdan was a Kyiv resident, born on January 12, 1977. He was a linguist studying Oriental languages at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. He taught at Xiamen University in China. He was a polyglot; he spoke five languages.
Bohdan returned to Ukraine just before the full-scale invasion. He’d been volunteering since February 24, 2022. His brother Borys worked in one of the suburban restaurants, which cooked food for Ukrainian soldiers defending Kyiv. Bohdan drove to checkpoints to deliver hot meals, whilst helping foreign journalists, who were arriving in Ukraine, to cover the war. He had been in Kherson, Bakhmut, Izium. Bohdan’s sixth assignment to the battle zone turned fatal.
«He always came by the unit of my military buddy, and took the protective gear assigned to him - the bulletproof vest and the helmet. Why Bohdan had no gear on him on that bridge, I have no idea», said Borys.
Bohdan was buried in Pukhivka, a village in the Kyiv region.
