Jericho Skye Magallon, 28, who survived 10 months fighting alongside Ukrainians from March 2022 to December, returned to Ukraine just a few days ago, but died after being shot on Tuesday, Sept. 5, according to longtime family friends who had spoken with Jericho’s mother, Alison Magallon.

Mark Sims of Ojai said Alison told him that Jericho had returned to Ukraine 10 days ago, after being asked to help with training away from the front lines. However, when asked to assist with a rescue operation on the front lines, Jericho volunteered and was killed there.

Jericho first left for Ukraine on March 5, 2022, just nine days after the Russian invasion on Feb. 24, 2022. The former U.S. Army military police investigator joined the International Foreign Legion of Territorial Defense to fight as a volunteer and was first sent to the front lines on March 9, 2022.

He told the Ojai Valley News before he left last year: “Everybody is standing around in a circle, watching this little country get brutalized, get murdered. I’m not going to be able to stand by and watch that happen, and I’m not going to watch someone go down without support.”

Jericho’s aunt, Juliann F. Esquivel, of Miami, Florida, wrote on her Facebook page on Sept. 6: “My beloved nephew, Jericho Skye Magallon, died yesterday on the Ukrainian front along with 19 other volunteers who had gone to fight the Russians in the Ukraine.” … She wrote that Jericho “believed in freedom for everyone. … He was beautiful and humble. … I will never forget you, my sweet nephew. You had a heart of gold. You are in the arms of angels.”

Jericho is survived by several family members, including his mother, Alison, and several siblings.

Alison told the Ojai Valley News that at first she tried to dissuade her son from going in 2022, but that, two days before he left, she accepted his decision. “I realized that it’s not my choice to make, but it’s what I believe his calling is.”

Jericho Skye Magallon braved the front lines of the war in Ukraine.

Jericho told the OVN before he left: “If Russia takes over, some of them probably won’t survive, and even if they do, what kind of world is it to live under Putin’s reign. It’s not a world I want to live in, and I’d fight like hell.”

He described the Russian and Chechen soldiers and Wagner mercenaries as “absolutely evil” and said his time in Ukraine was “the most rewarding experience I have ever been a part of.”

Following his return to Ojai, Jericho moved to Colorado about six months ago to be close to his son, according to family friend Mark Benkert, whose wife was with Alison the day Jericho was born.

“He was a good pal,” he said of Jericho. Benkert said he tried to talk Jericho out of going to Ukraine, but “he wanted to help out as much as he could.”

When asked by the OVN if there was anything else he wanted to add for the article about his return home, Jericho said, “Glory to Ukraine, glory to heroes.”

To read the fall 2022 Ojai Magazine article about Jericho, visit: https://issuu.com/ojaivisitorsguide/docs/om_fall_2022/92