VICTIMS OF DOUBLE CRUISE MISSILE STRIKE
Left: Valeria Glodan and three-month-old daughter Kira were killed in the air strike. Centre: The bombed apartment block in Odesa. Right: Mila and Bogdan Chernetskaya who were expecting their first baby, were also killed in the attack
Yesterday mementoes of their final moments together still lay scattered amid the debris that covered the flat’s tiled floors.
A box of Kyiv Easter chocolates, a pair of Valeria’s leather shoes, and a woman’s blue and pink nightgown lay covered in dust. In the kitchen, a fridge door had been blown ajar to reveal the collection of red and white wines that the Glodans had planned to share over dinner on Sunday.
As two more rescue workers sift through the scene of destruction, the curtains from Lyudmila’s front room flutter in the wind.
Her bedroom, where Yuri and
Valeria had spent the previous night with baby Kira sleeping safely beside them in a small carry cot, has been completely upended. Her books and parts of the ceiling are now strewn across the floor.
The three of them are set to be buried later today and they were not the only victims, of course.
Two of Lyudmila Yavkina’s fourthfloor neighbours, athlete Mila Chernetskaya and her husband Bogdan, could only be identified as the latest victims of Putin’s barbaric attack on Odesa’s civilian population as late as yesterday.
They had only just moved to the apartment block and, adding to the heartbreak, Mila was pregnant their first child. A week before his death, Bogdan had told his sister that he and his wife were expecting a baby.
‘My dear and sweet girl. What a wonderful, bright, and kind family you were.
‘You were expecting a baby and life was just beginning,’ Mila’s friend Veronika Kas wrote on social media.
Only the previous day, the bodies of another young couple with everything to live for had been recovered two days after the missiles hit.
Mila, 28, and her 21-year-old husband had only been married since August last year.
Bogdan’s sister Yana wrote on Instagram: ‘But I have so many questions.
‘Why did this happen on this particular day?
‘I really hope I have kids, two of them. I will name them Mila and Bogdan.’