Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian father rushes home after Russian airstrike to find two-year-old daughter dead in rubble

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy: "Russian weapons and hatred continue to take and destroy the lives of Ukrainian children every day." Photo /AP

A Ukrainian man rushed to his home outside the central city of Dnipro in hopes of rescuing his family, only to find his two-year-old daughter dead and wife seriously wounded as he helped pull them from the rubble of their apartment destroyed in one of Russia’s latest airstrikes of the war, authorities reported on Sunday.

Writing on Telegram after the body of Liza was recovered, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least 500 Ukrainian children had been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24 last year. The United Nations says about 1000 other Ukrainian children have been wounded, and thousands of others have been forcibly deported to Russia.

Zelenskyy, who this week had noted International Children’s Day, said “Russian weapons and hatred continue to take and destroy the lives of Ukrainian children every day”, adding that “many of them could have become famous scholars, artists, sports champions, contributing to Ukraine’s history”.

“We must hold out and win this war!” he said. “All of Ukraine, all our people, all our children, must be free from the Russian terror!”

Liza was killed when a Russian missile landed on Saturday night in a yard next to her apartment building while she was home with her mother, said Serhiy Lysak, the regional governor of Dnipropetrovsk. The girl’s father rushed home from work.

“The father was on duty and, as I was told, he personally cleared the rubble and pulled out his wife and his daughter. Just imagine the scale of this tragedy,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said, reporting on the rescue that lasted until early Sunday. The girl’s mother was hospitalised under intensive care.

Zelenskyy said five children were among 25 people wounded in Saturday’s attack, which damaged two residential buildings.

The mother of one of the children sat amid broken concrete, twisted metal, children’s toys and clothes near her apartment building and described what happened.

“I was running from the electrical station across the traffic,” Alyona Serednyak recalled. “I was running home. My child was alone at home. We tried to pull my child from under the cage on the window.”

She said they managed to free him and he’s now in hospital in intensive care.

Residents get free meals from volunteers against the background of their apartment house, damaged in a Russian rocket attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP

Like Zelenskyy, his wife Olena focused Sunday on children’s suffering in the war, dedicating a monument to them in Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv.

“Parents hold their children’s hand when they take their first steps, when they first take them to kindergarten, to school,” Ukraine’s first lady said. “The worst thing you can imagine is to hold the hand of a dead child. It just shouldn’t be like that. Children must live!”

Russian drone and cruise missile strikes on Sunday targeted numerous areas of the country, including the capital, Kyiv.

The Ukrainian air force updated earlier figures and said air defences downed six of eight Shahed self-exploding drones and four of six cruise missiles fired.

Ukrainian air force spokesman Yurii Ihnat said two missiles struck a military air base in Kropyvnytskyi in central Ukraine’s Kyrovohrad province. He didn’t report the damage.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said the military destroyed Ukrainian warplanes and ammunition depots in strikes on Ukrainian airfields, but didn’t give further specifics.

The Russian military has reported attacks in recent days on Ukrainian air defence batteries, air bases, troop and ammunition depots, military production factories, command and observation points and other battlefield positions. The strikes come as Ukrainian officials refrain from announcing the launch of their much-anticipated counteroffensive to reclaim more Russian-occupied territory, although the pace of military activity suggests the operation may already be underway.

Ukrainian forces maintained pressure on Russian forces in the eastern city of Bakhmut, which Moscow claimed control of last month after the war’s longest and bloodiest battle.

Elsewhere, Russians fighting alongside Ukrainian forces declared they had launched new attacks on Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine. One of the groups, the Russian Volunteer Corps, released videos on Sunday showing a purported raid and offering to exchange prisoners with Russian authorities. The videos’ authenticity could not be verified.

Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov responded to the prisoner exchange offer in a video of his own, saying he was sceptical the captives are still alive, but was open to a meeting to discuss a swap.

Gladkov also reported more Ukrainian shelling on Sunday of the border district of Shebekino and neighbouring areas. He said at least two people were killed and several wounded on Saturday and fires started. Russia’s Defense Ministry said the country’s forces repelled an attempted incursion in the town of Novaya Tavolzhanka.

Some observers see attacks in Belgorod that prompted Russian authorities to evacuate thousands of residents as part of Ukraine’s efforts to distract Moscow and stretch its forces to help the counteroffensive succeed.

In Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, regional leader Sergei Aksenov reported a Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Dzhankoi early on Sunday. He claimed five of the attacking drones were shot down and four others jammed and forced to land, adding that there were no casualties.

The latest Russian raids on Ukrainian cities sparked concerns over civilian safety after officials announced that nearly a quarter of the 4800 air-raid shelters they inspected were locked or unfit for use.

In Kyiv, 44 per cent of 1078 shelters were found closed up tight or unusable, Minister for Strategic Industries Oleksandr Kamyshin said.

The official acknowledgments came after a 33-year-old woman in Kyiv reportedly died while waiting outside a shuttered shelter during a Russian missile barrage last week.

Prosecutors in the capital said four people were detained as part of a criminal investigation into the woman’s death as she and others waited to enter a locked shelter. A security guard who allegedly failed to unlock the doors remained in custody. Three others, including a local official, were placed under house arrest.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at the weekend that city authorities received “more than 1000″ complaints regarding locked, dilapidated or insufficient air-raid shelters within a day of launching an online feedback service.