Italian volunteer Alex Pineschi killed while defending Ukraine. PHOTO
Alex Pineschi, a 42-year-old Italian citizen who served with Ukrainian special units, has been killed in the war against Russia near Lyman in the Donetsk region.
ANSA reported this, citing the Memorial volunteer association, Censor.NET reports.
What is known about the Italian?
There has been no official confirmation of the circumstances of Pineschi’s death. However, reports circulating among communities of foreign volunteer fighters say that Pineschi was killed on 23 May together with his comrades-in-arms from a unit of the Unmanned Systems Forces near Lyman.
He signed a contract just a few months ago.
He fought in the Middle East
Alex Pineschi was a native of La Spezia and was well known in Italy as a tactical training instructor. He founded the AP TAC training center, which specializes in "tactical firearms training".
Pineschi was known for his participation in other armed conflicts. He said that for five years, from 2014 to 2019, he fought in Syria and Iraq and served as an instructor for Kurdish forces.
Before that, according to him, he worked as a "freelancer in the private security sector in Italy and abroad", but felt that he wanted "more" from his life in order to overcome the "pain" of never having "managed to fulfil the dream of wearing a military uniform permanently".
"If someone asked me today why I decided to fight, I would answer: because I saw a cause worth taking the risk for," he said.
- The Italian was also the author of the memoir Peshmerga: Facing Death, in which he described his experience in war and his sense of a military calling.
At the same time, Pineschi was initially not interested in the war in Ukraine. In 2024, he said he "did not feel this war as his own".
Pineschi became the 11th Italian citizen to be killed in the war in Ukraine.
