Anguish, anger while Ukraine bursts the children killed in the Russian strike

The priests arrived at the children’s playground with a teddy bear, oscillating incense and singing the names of the nine children who died here.

Tymofii Tsvitok, the three -year -old boy who loved ladybugs hunting. Alina Kutsenko and Danylo Nikitskyi, fifteen years old who had just started dating, telling their friends who was serious. Herman Tripolets, a nine-year-old boy who recently presented a book report at school on one of his favorite readings, on a fantastic land for children-only to enter, had to sacrifice a memory.

Three days have passed since Russia hit the playground with a ballistic missile on Friday, killing 20-on which nine children-and wandering 90. The United Nations Commission on human rights said that it was the worst attack on children from the beginning of the vast scale of Russia.

Kryvyi Rih – the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymy Zlensky – had just started crying his dead when Moscow falsely said that the attack was a successful strike on a “military target”.

While the doctors sought the bodies of the children in bags on Friday, the Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have killed 85 officers in “A meeting between the commanders of the Ukrainian armed forces and western instructors” in a restaurant.

The Washington Post Reviewed security movies from the restaurant near the park, which showed that employees are cleaned after A forum of the afternoon beauty sector Hosted by a local commercial association.

They were not present military, the video shows and local officials and witnesses said that only civilians were killed.

“To compare that (declaration) with reality, seeing the bodies of all children,” said Switlana Tolmach, 36 years old, who participated in the beauty forum and was hospitalized for a serious injury to the strike of the strike, “persecuted me”.

The spokesman for the Kremlin Dmitry Peskov doubled the claims of Russia during a Monday press conference, witting away a question about the fact that Moscow could have made a mistake with an imprecise intelligence.

“I suggest focusing here on the statements of our Ministry of Defense,” said Peskov. “Our soldiers affect only military and almost military objectives.”

On Monday morning, local time, the priests were located in the humid spring grass – a kick of a football ball away from where the missile unleashed more than a meter on earth – and prayed for the victims.

They also included Radyslav Yatsko, seven years old, who was sitting on the back seat of his parents’ car near the playground with his little sister, who survived. Arina Samodina, also 7, who was playing on the swings with her four -year cousin, undergoes her second rescue intervention. Arina’s grandfather, looking at a bench in the park, also died.

“There are no words that we can find for families who have lost the most sacred thing,” said the priest, Mercury Skorokhod, with a gathering of neighbors in bundles in winter coats and wool hats, facts designed such as the bitter April sky.

He passed over two caution ribbon ribbons, placing the teddy bear on the sand.

“They just want to destroy us”

The Iskander missile launched by the Russian region of Taganrog – about 400 kilometers away – reached the playground in a few minutes, say the Ukrainian authorities. He exploded bombs of granate size in the air, flooding the area with Shrapnel and avoiding everything on their path.

Sharching ropes of rope string stripped of metal from the trees. They shattered windows. He slammed the chains from the swing set. Hole in size forage into the metal slide and holes hammered in the sidewalk.

And they cut through small bodies, leaving the blood stains in the sand from the ride.

“The most difficult part is to explain to the parents that they no longer have a child,” said Nazar Misura, anesthesiologist in a local hospital, who took care of so many victims after the strike that he knew them only in number of triage, not from the name.

The playground has become a deposit for the pain of the city, every surface now Covered in spring flowers, plush, bars and toy machines. The height has focused under the weight of the gifts. The candles burned, the sweet and oppressive smell, like nearby, the neighbors cut the plywood to cover the wide open windows.

A 13-year-old boy in a blue-felp sweatshirt with a hood was pulled on his brown hair-he leveraged a piece of splinters of slum from the ground to show his friends. Approaching the swing set, they pushed their fingers through the jagged holes in the metal frame. Yes, the neighbors were discussing what would become the playground.

“I think this place should be demolished,” said Vlad Umrukhin, a 29 -year -old doctor who lives nearby.

He grabbed his three -year -old daughter in his arms, his pink velcro sneakers who calculated on his side, a bouquet of flowers in his hand. Their long afternoons on the swing set were finished, another piece of his childhood lost forever in war.

“The ceased the fire is ridiculous,” he said. “They just want to destroy us.”

‘Our future’

On Monday morning, the third grade teacher Natalia Freilikh had not yet decided how to explain to his students why Herman Tripolets would not have been in the classroom that day. He was six years old when the war began, nine when life ended.

While the children had become accustomed to violence, they were not used to being targeted in the sand. Since January, Russia has affected their city 12 times – probably linked to its proximity to the first line – leaving 32 and 173 people injured, including those killed on Friday. Hours after the attack on the playground, the drones killed another person and wounded seven to Kryvyi Rih, the officials said.

Freilikh had spent hours sending messages with Herman’s classmates. They were fighting, he said. They were starting three days of mourning – the most Kryvyi Rih ever had – with the first funeral that start that day. Some children were buried together in joint memorials, including the 15 -year -old couple, their boxes open side by side in the church.

“I’m very sad and frightened,” a girl wrote in Freilikh.

“He was a friend for me,” another said.

“I don’t know how to react,” said Freilikh, wondering if the class should be canceled. “Should I put an end to this? But I understand that children have to pain in their own way.”

In the end, he didn’t have to decide.

The air alert siren has again canceled the lesson, now held in a bomb refuge under school when it was not online. The third floor class of Freilikh was no longer considered safe.

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Hours later, once the threat had passed, the school held a special ceremony for children and their parents to honor Herman and two of his schoolmates, who had also died in the strike. A small table dressed in white kept portraits of the two boys and a girl, set in a group of bouquets.

“We have gathered here due to tragic events that occurred on a sunny day like this,” said the principal Andrii Rogal. “The Russians are taking not only the best of our sons and daughters, but of our future.”

After a moment of silence, the children brought flowers to the memorial for other children before returning to the arms of their mothers.

Through Kryvyi Rih, Herman’s family was preparing for their last farewell. The boy who loved Lego and Roblox had been measured for his coffin and dressed with beautiful clothes.

“When a person is born, see how fragile (life) it is at that moment,” said his father, Valerii Tripolets.

“Those who begin wars, must be present in those moments to see the vulnerability of human life. I was changed after the birth of my son. I changed my opinions on the world … I saw how it was born and I saw how he died.”

He stopped, flooded with pain. “How do we go on?”

The Washington Post