The great-aunt of a four-year-old Ukrainian girl who died in her pram during a Russian rocket attack cried as she described the tragic death of little Liza.
Tetiana Dmytrysyna said she is waiting to find out if Liza’s mother Iryna will survive her injuries in the rocket attack on Vinnytsya last Thursday.
Iryna lost a leg in the strike and remains unconscious.
Tetiana told AP: “She reached for her daughter and Liza was already dead.
Great-Aunt Tetiana cried yesterday as she described the pain of losing little four-year-old Liza
“The mother has been robbed of the most precious thing she had.”
Mother Iryna is unconscious in the hospital and has lost a leg. Her condition is critical
Liza, whose mother maintained a blog where she would educate readers about raising a child with Down syndrome, has become the latest face of her country’s suffering.
Heartbreaking footage taken earlier in the day shows Liza playing hours before her death.
Her stroller was charred and crushed when the rocket hit the busy city center in southwestern Ukraine at 10:50 am.
Irina previously posted on social media about her fears for daughter Liza, saying she was “afraid to make wishes” about the future for them and for their country.
Writing about the fifth birthday that little Liza will now never experience, she said: ‘First it was Covid-19, then the war. I haven’t been able to arrange a real birthday party for Liza in two years.
‘I hope her fifth birthday gives us a chance! I’m afraid to make wishes. I only dream about peace, and about things going the way we want.’
Heartbreaking video shot just hours before Liza was killed shows her pushing her own pram
A Ukrainian soldier leaves a bouquet of flowers at a makeshift monument where Liza was murdered
Liza’s stroller was later found in the middle of the street – spattered with blood from wounds that the girl did not survive. Iryna was injured and taken to hospital in critical condition, where she is now fighting for her life
Liza Dmitrieva, four (left), who had Down syndrome, was in the Ukrainian city of Vinnystya today with mother Irina (right) on a girls day and was filmed pushing her own pram – just an hour before a Russian cruise missile was killed. hair
Just six hours before Liza was killed, she had posted about the progress her daughter had made despite the pandemic and the war.
President Zelensky wrote on social media after the attack: “Vinnytsya. Rocket strikes in the city center. There are injuries and deaths, including a small child,” he wrote on Instagram.
Every day Russia destroys the civilian population, kills Ukrainian children, aims missiles at civilian objects where there is nothing military.
What is this, if not an overt act of terrorism? In people. A killer country. A terrorist country.’
In a response to Twitter, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Russia of committing “another war crime.”
“We will try Russian war criminals for every drop of Ukrainian blood and tears,” he wrote.
Tetiana cried when she said: ‘She reached for her daughter and Liza was already dead’
Three Russian missiles hit an office building in the center of Vinnytsya, a Ukrainian city hundreds of kilometers from today’s front lines, killing several civilians today.
A Russian Caliber cruise missile slammed into this office building in Vinnystya, which is hundreds of miles from the nearest front line, as Liza and Irina walked by — both sprinkled with shrapnel
Russia has stepped up its attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine as its offensive in the east has stalled after taking two key cities in late June and early July.
Ukraine says Putin’s men are taking an “operation break” before continuing their offensive, but that hasn’t stopped them from raining down death from a distance.
The first such strike destroyed the Kremenchuk shopping center on June 27, killing at least 20 people, but leaving a further 36 missing suspected dead.
Russia tried to deny hitting the mall – suggesting it fired on nearby military targets, including a factory and a railway – and that “collateral damage” had been caused by a fire that spread to the mall.
But CCTV footage clearly showed a Russian anti-ship missile, originally designed to take out US aircraft carriers, slamming into the building.
This was followed by an attack on an apartment building in Mykolaiv on June 29 that killed at least eight people, and another in Odessa on July 1 that left 18 dead.
Vinnytsya, 450 miles from the Donbas frontline, is just the latest town hit in a series of Russian airstrikes on civilians
Putin’s loyal defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, said today that Russia must step up its shock and awe attacks in Ukraine.
Shoigu’ gave instructions to the actions of [military] groups in all operational areas,” local reports claimed.
A 70-year-old woman was one of three victims of an air raid on Chuhuiv near Kharkov.
A regional police official said Russia fired four rockets from near the western city of Belgorod around 3:30 a.m.
The strike damaged a two-storey residential building, a school and a shop, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Synehubov said.
Dozens of people were injured in the attack, many of them in serious condition, in the latest Russian missile strike on a purely civilian area of Ukraine
Cars are smoldering in front of an office building in the city of Vinnytsya, western Ukraine, after it was hit by three Russian missiles that landed around 10:50 a.m. Thursday
Firefighters try to put out fires in Vinnytsya caused by three Russian missiles that hit the city on Thursday morning
Ukraine’s shortened and straightened defense line to the east has successfully repulsed Russian attacks, according to the British Ministry of Defense.
The intelligence service’s daily update this morning said the “Ukrainian defense has been successful in repelling Russian attacks since Lysychansk was ceded and the Ukrainian defense line was shortened and straightened.”
It added: “This has enabled the concentration of force and firing against reduced Russian attacks and has helped to reduce Russia’s momentum.”