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Disasters
Matt Sepic
Minneapolis

Minnesota native killed in attack in Chernihiv, Ukraine

Minnesota native Jimmy Hill.
Minnesota native Jimmy Hill in Kyiv in the summer of 2019. His family confirmed that he was killed in Ukraine.
Courtesy of Katya Hill

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Updated: 7:10 p.m.

A Minnesota native was killed during an attack by Russian forces in Ukraine. Jimmy Hill, 68, became stranded in Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv after taking his partner there for medical treatment.

Hill was born in Eveleth, Minn. and grew up in Mahtomedi, Minn., after his parents left the Iron Range for the Twin Cities suburbs, said his sister Katya Hill of Pittsburgh.

Hill said her brother, who was a social worker and forensic psychologist, lived in Ukraine on and off for about 20 years. He held various teaching positions in Kyiv and other European cities.

Despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threats, Hill said her brother did not think Putin would follow through with a brutal invasion.

“We were in a world [where] that was just not going to be allowed to happen. So he felt safe up until the bombing started,” Hill said.

Two days before the invasion, Hill took his partner Iryna for multiple sclerosis treatment. They soon became stranded in a hospital in Chernihiv, about two hours from the Ukrainian capital.

“The last message I got from my brother said that the bombing was intensive, and the food was almost gone,” Hill said.

Hill said her brother was out looking for food when he was killed. In a message posted to Twitter on Wednesday, the U.S. embassy in Kyiv said that Russian forces “shot and killed 10 people standing in line for bread in Chernihiv.”

But Hill said the State Department was not able to tell her if her brother was among those victims or if he was killed in another attack; she said officials could only provide confirmation of his death. 

Hill said her brother exemplified the values he learned during the family’s summers visiting the melting pot of Minnesota’s Iron Range, “that we are all everyone’s brother and sister. Humanity is a family. And it doesn’t matter what your nationality is, your religion, your background. We’re all family. And he treated everybody like that.” 

In addition to his sister Katya, Jimmy Hill is survived by a brother, another sister and two adult sons.