A blood-soaked mum has been pictured clutching her dying child’s scarf as paramedics desperately tried to save the girl who was fatally wounded in a Russian airstrike.
The horrifying image shows the devastated mother, crying as she stands outside the ambulance.
Inside the ambulance, her unnamed child was being treated.
The shocking image captures the heartbreak and horror of the situation faced by Ukrainians since Russia invaded the country on Thursday.
The heartstruck mum is donning a blood-soaked white beanie and clutching her turtleneck sweater up over her mouth as she waits outside the vehicle, holding what appears to be a girl's pink scarf.
Her face is grimaced in pain while inside of the ambulance, a medic can be seen bending over a stretcher holding a child, who is wearing unicorn pyjamas.
Another child, Polina , a 4th-grade pupil, from Kyiv, was travelling in the car with her family and her brother and sister when they came under fire from a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group.
She was in her last year of primary school but is now counted among at least 14 children who are said to have been killed since Russia invaded Ukraine on Thursday.
Kyiv’s deputy mayor Volodymyr Bondarenko said in a Facebook post that Polina’s brother is receiving treatment at Okhmatdyt children’s hospital.
He added that her sister is in intensive care at a second hospital.
He said: “Her name was Polina. She studied in the 4th grade of school in Kyiv.
"This morning on Teligi she and her parents were shot by Russian DRG.”
In the same post, he pleaded for people to remain at home unless absolutely necessary.
This comes as fierce fighting continues across Ukraine, focused around their cities as Kharkiv which suffered a deadly missile strike leaving dozens dead and hundreds injured.
Vladimir Putin has ordered part of his nuclear forces to be on enhanced combat duty in an alarming escalation of tensions.
The command came after many missiles landed in a built-up civilian area of Kharkiv, killing dozens of people.
At the same time as the violence was escalating, a Ukrainian and Russian delegation were sitting down on the Belarussian border for negotiations.
It came after the UK Defence Secretary warned the Russian invasion of Ukraine was likely to become "more violent" as Putin's army falls behind schedule.
This morning it was announced that 4,500 Russian soldiers had died and 16 Ukrainian children killed during the invasion so far.
