The Ukrainian press has reported that Russian soldiers killed the conductor Yurii Kerpatenko because he refused to cooperate with the invaders, the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and Information Policy said. Journalist Olena Vanina was the first to report the conductor’s murder.
« Today it became known that the conductor of the Kherson Philharmonic has been shot by the occupiers. He had refused to cooperate with them, and they said they would be back. They showed up at his house and shot him right there », Vanina wrote on Facebook.
The news was then confirmed by the Ministry. Citing regional media, the Ministry said the invaders and collaborators had planned to organize a gala concert featuring the Hilea Chamber Orchestra on International Music Day, 1 October. The occupiers allegedly wanted to use this concert to show that « peaceful life » had supposedly been established in Kherson.
Yurii Kerpatenko had been working at the Kherson Philharmonic since 2000, and he became principal conductor at the Mykola Kulish Music and Drama Theatre in Kherson in 2004. He was also the principal conductor of the Hilea Chamber Orchestra. When he refused to conduct this concert, he was brutally murdered.
