Father’s tender vigil over son, 13, killed by Russian rocket
A LONE father clutched a small book in one hand as he stared forward reciting a prayer. In the other, he held the limp hand of his dead 13-year-old son.
The boy, Dmytro, was killed while he waited for a bus in Ukraine’s second city of Kharkiv, the latest victim of the constant shelling and missile attacks by Russia.
His sister Ksenia, 15, was taken to hospital in a grave condition, local authorities reported. The attack also killed an elderly couple.
The teenagers’ father spent about two hours by his son’s body at the site of the shelling, holding his lifeless hand and reading prayers.
Soon after, he stood and watched paramedics zip up the body bag and take it away as he made the sign of the cross.
Ihor Terekhov, the Kharkiv mayor, said Russian forces used a Uragan multiple rocket launcher to target the
‘It was quiet and I thought “Thank God”. As I came out of the kitchen there was this bang. I can’t even describe it’
‘An invasive terrorist war is being waged against my country’
city’s Saltyvka residential area, which was heavily bombed in the first months of the war.
The blast also hit a mosque nearby, with the front door and the sign in Ukrainian and Arabic pockmarked by shrapnel.
Raisa, a neighbour of Dmytro’s family, told Kharkiv public television that the area around her block had been attacked at least four times before.
“It was so quiet. I thought: ‘Thank God!’ As soon as I came out of the kitchen there was this bang. I can’t even describe it,” she said.
Shells landed at the bus stop as commuters were getting off the bus, she added. Caked blood was still visible on the stop yesterday morning.
Dmytro and his sister competed together in ballroom dancing, friends said, and were also good students.
“They are such hard-working kids. Their parents have been very supportive of them,” Olha Lisnyak, their dance teacher, said.
Ms Lisnyak added that the pair had won medals at city ballroom dancing competitions.
The siblings, who lived not far from the bus stop, have been going to the dancing classes at their school nearby that was destroyed by a Russian air strike last month. Ms Lisnyak said both Dmytro and Ksenia, who had been training for at least five years, had other partners earlier but soon started dancing together.
Renewed Russian shelling was also reported yesterday in eastern Ukraine and outside the central city of Dnipro, where two people were killed in overnight attacks.
Olena Zelenska, Ukraine’s first lady, yesterday made an impassioned plea in the US Congress for more missile defence systems. She showed graphic images of what she called the “Russian hunger games”, which have killed children and torn families asunder.
Among the victims pictured was Liza Dmitrieva, a four-year-old with Down’s syndrome who was killed by a Russian strike last week in Vinnytsia.
US lawmakers shook their heads as they watched the images of bloodstained pushchairs and small crumpled bodies left by the bombardment.
“How many families like this may still be destroyed by war? These are Russia’s Hunger Games,” she said in reference to the popular movie series.
Ms Zelenska, stepping into a more public role in recent weeks, acknowledged it was unusual for a foreign leader’s spouse to appear before Congress.
But she said: “I want to address you not as a first lady but as a daughter and a mother. An unprovoked invasive terrorist war is being waged against my country. Russia is destroying our people.
“The answer is right here in Washington, DC. Help us to stop this terror against Ukrainians and this will be our joint great victory.”
Her speech received a standing ovation from both Democratic and Republican congressmen and senators.