Iryna Zarutska’s boyfriend has shared a heartbreaking video showing the young Ukrainian embracing life in America before her dream was cruelly cut short.
The 23-year-old refugee had just moved in with her partner Stas Nikulytsia in Charlotte, North Carolina, when she was stabbed to death in an unprovoked attack on a light rail train last month.
In a poignant compilation posted to Instagram, Nikulytsia showed his girlfriend reveling in her new life in America – sipping cocktails, eating barbecue and dancing with friends.
The video also captured tender moments, including the couple embracing in an elevator, kissing the camera and enjoying their early twenties.
Zarutska fled a bomb shelter in Ukraine in 2022 with her mother, sister and brother to escape the war. She quickly learned English and had been ‘hoping for a new beginning’ when she came to Charlotte, her family said.
She worked at Zepeddie’s pizzeria in the south of the city to make ends meet while learning to drive and dreaming of becoming a veterinary assistant.
The art school graduate’s family declined to have her body returned to Ukraine, saying she would have wanted to be buried in the US because ‘she loved America.’
Clearly enamored by her new city, she even posted a photograph of the Charlotte skyline on Facebook just nine days before she died.
Stas Nikulytsia, the boyfriend of Iryna Zarutska, the refugee who was murdered on a North Carolina train, has shared a heartbreaking video of her living the American dream before her life was cruelly cut short. (Pictured: Nikulytsia and Zarutska. They had just moved in together)
Horrific footage (shown in a screenshot above) captured the moment Ukrainian refugee Zarutska, 23, was stabbed to death from behind as she sat on a train in North Carolina