Two siblings are fighting for life after their family was shot by Russian forces, killing their parents and sister, as they attempted to flee Ukraine.
Polina was 10-years-old when she and her parents Anton Kudrin and Svetlana Zapadynskaya were killed by Russia’s troops near Kyiv.
The troops opened fire on the family as the latter were in a car trying to escape the capital city on Saturday, on the third day of Vladimir Putin’sinvasion of Ukraine.
Polina’s little brother Semyon and older sister Sofia are in hospital, unaware that their parents and sister are dead.
A picture of pink-haired Polina was shared by Volodymyr Bondarenko, the deputy mayor of Kyiv, who said: “Her name was Polina. She studied in the 4th grade of school in Kyiv. Her and her parents were shot by Russian DRG (sabotage reconnaissance groups).”
Her brother Semyon is receiving treatment at Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv while older sister Sofia is in intensive care at another hospital, Mr Bondarenko said.
A photo shows a relative at Semyon’s bedside holding his hand while he is helped to be kept alive by a ventilator.
At least 16 children have been killed and 45 injured in the first four days of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday (28 February).
Devastating photos show children maimed or killed while lying on ward beds or in ambulances, after bombs have rained down on pre-schools, orphanages, residential areas, and hospitals.
A six-year-old girl wearing pink unicorn-print pajamas was fatally wounded by shelling in Mariupol on Sunday, and images show medics trying to save her by giving her CPR in an ambulance while her grief-stricken mother weeps.
The girl was raced inside a hospital and medics gave her an injection and tried to revive her with a defibrillator.
A doctor in blue medical scrubs, pumping oxygen into her, looked straight at the camera of an Associated Press videojournalist who had been allowed inside and said: “Show this to Putin – the eyes of this child, and crying doctors.”
Seven-year-old Alisa Hlans was killed along with six other children when a pre-school that they were hiding in was hit on Friday, the second day of the Russian invasion, in the town Okhtyrka in northeastern Ukraine.
Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova said Alisa died the following day in hospital, and that doctors had also been fighting to save a second child.
Also on Friday, an unnamed boy was killed when a block of flats was shelled in the small town Chuhuiv in the Kharkiv region.
On Thursday, when Putin launched the invasion, five members of the same family were killed in Kherson, in southern Ukraine, as Russian troops pushed towards the city from Crimea.
The victims included Sofia Fedko, 6, her brother Ivan, who was only a few weeks old, mother Irina, and two grandparents in their 50s.
A 10-year-old boy died of gunshot wounds as the ambulance he was travelling in to Ohmatdyt Children’s Hospital came under fire, local medic Dr Andrey Vysotskyi told Sky News.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Russian forces have been targeting Ukrainian children.
Kyiv has said that at least 352 Ukrainians have been killed, including 16 children, since the invasion began. More than 5,000 soldiers have lost their lives in less than a week of the conflict.
More than 660,000 people, mostly women and children, have fled Ukraine to neighbouring countries in the last six days, UN refugee agency said on Tuesday.
Shabia Mantoo, spokesperson of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a briefing in Geneva there were reports of people waiting for up to 60 hours to enter Poland, while queues at the Romanian border are up to 20 km long.
Human rights groups and Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US, on Monday accused Russia of attacking Ukrainians with cluster bombs and vacuum bombs.
Use of these highly-destructive weapons has been condemned by a number of international organisations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
International Criminal Court prosecutor Karim Khan says he is investigating the situation, saying there is a “reasonable basis” to believe “war crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed”.
More peace talks are expected to take place on Wednesday (2 March) after the first round of talks on Monday involving Ukrainian and Russian diplomats ended with no conclusion at a location on Ukraine’s border with Belarus.
