Baby ‘not given a chance... may you burn in hell’
PICTURES have emerged of a young mum and her three-month-old daughter who were killed when Russia bombed a block of flats.
One haunting image shows Valeria Hlodan, 27, cradling Kira shortly after she was born in January.
They were killed along with Valeria’s Russian mother and five other civilians in an air strike on the city of Odesa on Saturday.
It is thought the bomber flying over the Caspian Sea was meant to have struck a military target.
Barbarism
In February Valeria wrote on social media: “Our baby is already a month old. Her papa presented her with her first flowers. This is an entirely new level of happiness.”
Odesa, a strategically important port city on the Black Sea in southern Ukraine, is home to a million people. Russia is assaulting it by land, sea and air.
Speaking in front of the flattened apartment block, Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said: “Behind my back is what the [Russian] occupiers name ‘a military object’.
“Eight people were killed, one of them a three-monthold baby girl, a resident of Odesa who wasn’t given a chance to see life. Scumbags you are, may you burn in hell.”
A man called Igor was in his flat with his mother-in-law when the missiles hit. She had fled Mariupol for what she thought was a safer city. Igor said: “It’s only the beginning for Odesa. You know what happened in Mariupol, Bucha? I know that will come here.”
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said: “The world has not seen such barbarism in 80 years.
“The war started when this baby was one month old. They are just b ****** s. I don’t have any other words for it.”
Kira’s father Yuriy said: “My dear ones, Kingdom of Heaven! You are in our hearts!”
Meanwhile, family members of Ukrainian troops killed in the conflict also mourned their loved ones.
A funeral service for fallen soldier Kobryn Oleg, 39, was held on Saturday at Saints Peter and Peul Garrison Church in Lviv.
Mr Zelensky recently said that up to 3,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the invasion began on February 24.