Pole killed fighting in Ukraine buried as hero of 2 nations

By VANESSA GERA
Associated Press

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — A Polish man who died fighting in Ukraine was buried back home in his native soil, with weeping mourners praising him as a hero of two nations. Daniel Sztyber, a 35-year-old from Warsaw, lay in a coffin covered in Poland’s white-and-red flag, and was mourned by his parents and sister, by childhood friends, by aging veterans of World War II and young Ukrainians draped in their nation’s flag. At the graveside, Sztyber was praised as a freedom fighter in a long Polish tradition of sacrifice in defense of the ideals of democracy and freedom against Russian imperialism. It is illegal for Poles to fight in foreign armies, but some have volunteered anyway.