On Oct. 15, celebrated Ukrainian climber, Maksym Petrenko, was killed in a Russian mortar attack while defending the eastern Ukrainian town of Toretsk. “He was another victim of Russian aggression — a special victim,” said his friend and fellow climber, Vadim Vinokur, a Ukrainian-born American who works as a lawyer in New York.

“But in a way,” Vinokur corrected himself, “trying to say that he was special takes away from all the others who have died, who were special to others.”

Petrenko was 46 years old. He was among the strongest climbers from eastern Europe, both indoors and outdoors, throughout the 1990s and 2000s when he competed on the international circuit. He won the Youth World Championships in 1997, and he remains the only Ukrainian ever to win a Lead World Championship medal — a bronze in Birmingham, England in 1999.

Underlying these statistics is Petrenko’s incredible determination and tenacity, which were evident in his climbing. “If you’re coming from Ukraine in the 1990s your standard of life is nothing like in France or Germany. You’re not making money on the same level, yet you have to figure out how to travel in Europe and pay European prices,” explained Vinokur. “It was serious dedication to see if you could climb at the world level.”

Western European nations not only had world-class gyms and training facilities, they had climbing federation funds to support their athletes for expenses like air travel, lodging and competition fees. Their eastern counterparts had none of these advantages. “He was a crazy climber, driven on a level nearly unfathomable to his Western contemporaries,” said Jorg Verhoeven, a friend of Petrenko and fellow competitor, in an article on climbing.com. Petrenko eked out a strict training regime with scant resources. He and his friends would drive for days, sometimes more than 2,000 miles, sleeping on couches and floors, just to get to a competition.

Born in 1978 in Luhansk, now occupied by Russia, Petrenko pushed his limits outdoors as well, climbing as hard as 5.14c when that was close to the highest grade that existed. “He was a fighter,” recalls Vinokur, in a metaphorical sense.

The two met in 1990 at a junior competition in Crimea when Vinokur was 14 and Petrenko was 12. It was Vinokur’s debut competition and he took second place; Petrenko took first.

“He was one of the most talented climbers of our generation,” said Anna Piunova, editor-in-chief of Mountain RU and a close friend of Petrenko as reported on gripped.com. “He didn’t want to fight, didn’t want to die.”

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Ukrainian martial law prohibits men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving the country, with the expectation that they may be called to fight. So it didn’t surprise Vinokur when he received a message from Petrenko saying he had to go to war. “I thought it would happen eventually,” said Vinokur. “When the war started a lot of motivated people joined the military. But now a lot of people who joined are either dead or injured. Ukraine has been mobilizing men every month, and it was inevitable that it would get to him.”

Petrenko is just one person in a dreadfully long list of Ukrainian casualties — people like you and me who would never choose war, who cherish peace and independence, who value friends, family and freedom — who, without other options, were dragged into combat to fight the world’s second most powerful military.

“A lot of climbers have already been killed,” Vinokur told me. “There is definitely sadness about it, but I think at this point — I don’t want to sound like I normalize it — but in a way, they had to internalize all the death around them.” It’s already been more than two-and-a-half long years, and with no end in sight to Russian hostility, this tragic pattern will likely continue.

Petrenko’s funeral took place Oct. 24 in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Serendipitously, it’s also the city where Vinokur was born. “He was incredibly positive, he always smiled,” said Vinokur. “And that’s how I’ll remember him.”

Contact Chris Weidner at cweidner8@gmail.com. Follow him on Instagram @christopherweidner and X @cweidner8.