Father pays tribute to soldier son as ‘brave soul’ after his death in Ukraine

A former British Army soldier who died fighting the Russians in Ukraine was a “brave soul”, his father has said.

Liam Love, 24, who grew up in Coventry, was killed by a mortar bomb in Lyman in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine in October, his family said.

His parents live in Co Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, and a funeral service will he held there on Saturday.

Mr Love served with the Royal Anglian Regiment for four years, during which he helped train Ukrainian conscripts following the invasion by Russia in early 2022.

“The training was all too short because the men were needed back in Ukraine as quickly as possible,” Mr Love told BBC Northern Ireland.

“Liam befriended and kept in touch with them when they went back to Ukraine, but a lot were killed.

“He gave me a sense that he wanted to be more involved but never did I think that involvement would one day lead him to actually crossing the border into Ukraine.

“He empathised with the Ukrainian people and their plight and I think he felt that he didn’t give enough to the Ukrainian recruits when he was part of the training package.

“So he wanted to go out and help them to free themselves from what the Russians were doing at the time.”

In the month before he was killed, Mr Love sustained injuries after being hit by shrapnel from an artillery shell.

His father said that incident did not dissuade him from resuming combat activities.

“He was adamant that his own personal mission wasn’t completed and when he was fit to return to the fight he would – consequently he did,” he said.

He said on October 9 he received a call from a soldier who had been fighting alongside his son to tell him he had been killed in action.

“It was the call I’d hoped I would never have to take, prayed I would never have to take and, to be honest with you, I actually tried to keep it to the back of my mind that it wasn’t going to happen,” he said.

“During his recovery, one of the things he did say to me was that, ‘I’m going back but I will see you at Christmas’ so there was a confidence in him that he would see it through to at least Christmas and we would see him again then, but it didn’t happen.”

He added: “I want him to be remembered that he did believe in what he did and despite the discomforts of battle, warfare; his determination to see it through, I want that to be his lasting legacy.

“He wanted to be remembered by a simple quote, ‘What we do in life echoes in eternity’, and that will echo with me.

“He was just a brave soul.”

The funeral service will take place at St Patrick’s Church in Derrygonnelly on Saturday.

The family hopes a memorial service will be held at Coventry Cathedral at a later date.