The funeral of five members of the same family who were killed in a Russian airstrike last week was held in central Ukraine on Monday, as Moscow again pounded the region.
According to the Ukrainian authorities, a direct hit by an Iskander ballistic missile struck the family’s house in Kryvyi Rih — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s home city — on July 30.
At least two adults and four children were killed but the death toll could be higher as all the remains have not yet been formally identified.
On Monday, the coffins of five of the dead were brought to a small church in the town in front of a crowd of several dozen people, an AFP journalist said.
The family was “exceptionally good and sincere,” said Oksana Stretovych, a colleague of one of the deceased, Olena Voronova. “They always responded to all kinds of situations and tried to help.”
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Stretovych herself heard “a powerful explosion” on the night of the tragedy.
She was unable to sleep because she was worried about her husband and their only son, who serves in the Ukrainian army in “difficult” areas, she explained.
“When I got up and looked around me, not seeing any flames, I still started to try to find out what happened,” Stretovych added. “That’s how I found out about the incident. It’s very hard.”
“Even bigger desire for vengeance”
Stretovych’s son, military officer Taras, also said they were “a wonderful family, a large family, a family of faith, who simply worked for the good of Ukraine.”
Russian forces “simply wiped off the map a great family that we mourn deeply,” he said, adding that he had “an even bigger desire for vengeance.”
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The priest also described the family as respectable and hardworking.
On the evening of the strike, he said, “at my place, too, in the garage, the window was blown out, and the one in the bedroom as well,” he said.
After the missile struck, the Voronov home “was gone; all that was left was flattened earth,” he added.
More than four years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, shelling continues on an almost daily basis and is intensifying on both sides of the frontline, causing a growing number of civilian deaths.
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On Monday, a new Russian attack near Kryvyi Rih killed three, including an 8-year-old child, at a service station, according to the head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, Oleksandr Ganzha.
In July, the U.N. expressed concern about an “alarming escalatory trend” of increased civilian casualties in Ukraine “driven by the intensifying use of powerful weapons that are particularly deadly when used in densely populated urban areas.”
3 children among 7 killed in strike on beach, Russia says
In Russia and annexed Crimea, Ukrainian strikes killed 11 on Monday, Russian officials said. Seven people, including three children, were killed and dozens wounded when a drone crashed on a Russian beach on the Black Sea coast, the local governor said.
“What happened today was a deliberate attack by the Kyiv regime on the civilian population, which has no connection whatsoever to military infrastructure,” the governor, Veniamin Kondratyev, said in a statement on Telegram.
Ukraine has escalated its retaliatory strikes on Russia in recent months, partly to pressure Moscow to the negotiating table after nearly four-and-a-half years of war. Ukraine has targeted energy and logistics infrastructure.
Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged in June that Ukrainian strikes were causing “problems” for Russia, saying they were “observing a certain shortage, but it’s not critical.”
Last week, Zelenskyy met in Washington with President Trump and representatives of American defense companies, as he pleaded for swifter and bigger deliveries of Patriot air defense systems that are the best way to stop Russia’s ballistic assaults.
The Iran war has drained stockpiles of the American-made interceptors. Mr. Trump has promised to grant Ukraine licenses to build its own Patriots, but production could take a long time to set up.