The Ukrainian military is planning to hold a farewell ceremony in Kyiv to honor Tseng Sheng-kuang (曾聖光), a Hualien County-native who died fighting for Ukraine last week.
“He proved himself as a disciplined, balanced, brave warrior,” Vasylyna Nakonechna, a press officer at the military’s Carpathian Sich Battalion, said on Wednesday.
Tseng, 25, was a member of the International Legion of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces. He died during a combat mission in the contested Luhansk region on Wednesday last week, making him the first Taiwanese volunteer combatant to die in the Ukraine war.
Photo: screen grab from Facebook
Nakonechna said Tseng served two years in the Taiwanese army before on Aug. 19 joining the Carpathian Sich, an infantry unit made up of foreign and Ukrainian volunteers.
Nakonechna said she had met Tseng several times.
“He was a nice boy, always smiling and smart,” she said, adding that while some volunteers come to Ukraine “because they cannot do another work,” Tseng was motivated by his desire to “fight evil” and help civilians, especially women and children.
The battalion consists of several companies, with Tseng’s saying that it is especially saddened by its loss, but “you can lose everyone in every second, and at any time,” Nakonechna said.
Battalion Deputy Chief of Staff Ruslan Andriyko said Tseng was a courageous defender of Ukraine, and offered his respect to Tseng’s family.
Many volunteers “leave a peaceful life, at home and with a family, to get into the hell of war, mud, rain, frost, a cold trench in which the hot hearts of brothers beat under constant shelling and weeks without sleep. These are the conditions under which he spent his last days,” Andriyko said.
Nakonechna said Tseng’s body has been transported to Dnipro, southeast of Kyiv.
A farewell ceremony is to be held in Kyiv in his honor, but the date has yet to be confirmed, she said.
In Taipei, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Tuesday said that Tseng’s family has left for Ukraine to identify his body and deal with matters related to his death.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS