Employees of SE Ranking, the Silicon Valley company whose chief accountant is the first known tech worker to be killed in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, want Tatiana Perebeinis to be remembered for more than the way in which she died, a co-worker told MarketWatch on Wednesday.
“She was like a big sister to all of us. Kind, smart, funny, fearless, courageous,” SE Ranking spokeswoman Ksenia Khirvonina said in an interview via videoconference from Dubai, where she has fled to escape the fighting in Ukraine. “She never lost her optimism until the last moments, even from her basement. She kept telling us, ‘Everything will be OK.’”
Khirvonina’s lingering memory of her friend came on a corporate team-building weekend in the nearby country of Georgia just before the invasion. Perebeinis convinced a reticent Khirvonina to para-glide for the first time.
“She urged me to try it, and I can never thank her enough for that experience,” Khirvonina said. “That will forever be my memory of her.”
Perebeinis, who was essentially the chief financial officer at SE Ranking, and her two children, Nikita, 18, and Alise, 9, were killed by Russian artillery Sunday in Irpin, a city near Kyiv, while they were attempting to flee the country. Her death was captured on video and still images, one of which was featured on the front page of the New York Times on Sunday in one of the most indelible and horrifying images from Russia’s invasion. Perebeinis is survived by her husband, Sergiy, who is still in Ukraine.
