Michaił Żyźniewski

Mіkhaіl Mikhaylavich Zhyznyewski (; 26 January 1988 – 22 January 2014), also known as Mykhailo Mykhailovych Zhyznevskyi , was a Belarusian Euromaidan activist, journalist, and a member of UNA-UNSO. He died in a confrontation on Hrushevsky Street in Kyiv, Ukraine in January 2014, during the Euromaidan protests. Posthumously, he was the first foreigner to be awarded Hero of Ukraine, Ukraine's highest award.

Biography He grew up in the village of Stsyah Pratsy in the Homel region, Belarus. He studied at the Homel school № 15 in the military class. After the tenth grade he went to school to study to be a gas welder. He made medieval armor in the Knights' Club, practiced karate and attended the Orthodox Church. He planned to serve in the army, and then go to Zhyrovichy Monastery.

On September 11, 2005, at age 17, he ran away from home and emigrated to Ukraine. He did not communicate with his family in Belarus for a long time, but in the last year of his life he resumed contacts with his parents. He met with them in Kyiv and planned to come home in the spring of 2014. In 2012, Zhyzneuski came to the police station in Ukraine, showed documents and said that there was no need to look for him.

In Ukraine he lived first in Donetsk and Kryvyi Rih, then in Kyiv. In the last years of his life he rented a house in Bila Tserkva. He worked as a welder and window installer. He died on January 22, 2014, at about 9 am from a shot in the heart near the Dynamo Stadium on Hrushevsky Street. Zhyzneuski's father expressed doubts that the perpetrators of the murder would be found. He suggested that his son had been killed by a sniper, but believed that neither the Ukrainian nor the Belarusian authorities would conduct an objective investigation.