Nation builder Yevhen Marchuk dies at age 80 due to COVID-19 complications

KYIV – A prominent statesman who helped shape Ukraine’s nationhood during much of its formative years after renewed independence in 1991 died over the past week. Yevhen Marchuk, 80, died on August 5 from complications of COVID-19. He was buried in Kyiv’s Baikove cemetery two days later. “The coronavirus disease exacerbated the diseases he suffered from and provoked acute pulmonary heart failure,” said a statement by the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), which he had founded in 1991 and initially led. The SBU succeeded the Soviet-era KGB.