'Child was screaming: ‘Mommy!’ And Mommy did not answer.” The story of couple killed in Russian drone strike

At 1:30 a.m. during an air raid alert in Kyiv Oblast a Shahed drone struck Svitlana’s apartment. The dream home that she and her husband had almost paid off burned to the ground. In an instant the couple was gone. By some miracle their younger daughter was rescued from the blazing apartment.

“I went in and saw a child calling for her mom and shaking”

In the middle of a residential complex in Bilohorodka just outside Kyiv are dozens of rescuers and several fire trucks. Residents stand all around. Mostly in silence. Only occasionally lifting sorrowful eyes toward the black, completely gutted mansard apartment in the corner six-story building.

“Are there fatalities here?” a man asks as he passes by.

“Yes. A man and a woman. The child was saved,” they answer.

“Those bastards…” he curses the Russians and walks on with his head down.

Residents say it was a direct hit. Though they did not hear the drone. At first, they thought it was a gas explosion.

“Strange that there was not even a sound. Usually, you hear it buzzing somewhere. We read that several Shaheds were heading west, and that was it. Especially since it is far from any critical infrastructure. No one went down [to the shelter…]” one resident says.

“We were just sitting — and then bam! I yelled: ‘Get down!’ — looked out the window right away, saw the roof burning, grabbed my tactical medical backpack and ran upstairs,” says Marian Kushnir, a Radio Free Europe war correspondent who lives in the same building.

He is the one who rescued the 4-year-old girl from the apartment. The home was two-level: the woman and her husband were on the upper floor, and the child was sleeping on the lower floor. That is why she survived.

The apartment doors were ajar. I went in and saw the child lying on the sofa. She is screaming “Mommy, mommy, mommy!” And mommy does not answer. The upper floor is burning. Seeing a child calling for her mom, crying and shaking — that is terrifying.Marian Kushnir, Radio Free Europe war correspondent

“I took the child out of there, tried to go up to the top floor, but everything was already burning too fiercely. Neighbors ran up with fire extinguishers, tried to put it out, but no luck,” Marian adds.

According to the State Emergency Service the fire covered 600 square meters. A woman and two children suffered acute stress reactions, and a man had carbon monoxide poisoning. Their condition, authorities say, is satisfactory.

“She had two beauty salons. She was such a champ”

“I have not slept since 1:36 a.m. I keep crying and still cannot pull myself together. I knew Svitlana very well,” says neighbor Maryna. Her apartment has the same layout. She does not live there now, so at first, from the photos, she thought her own place was burning.

“When I realized it was Sveta’s apartment, I waited until morning for news from neighbors. I was sure they were alive, and everything was fine. But everything is not fine…”

Svitlana Blatova had just turned 40. She was a cosmetologist who owned two beauty salons. And she had two children from previous marriages — an older son, Maksym, and a 4-year-old daughter, Milana. They lived with her daughter and her common-law husband Maksym, who died together with her. The couple had only recently bought the apartment here.

“She dreamed so much of this apartment! They bought it on credit relatively recently. And they had almost paid it off,” Maryna says.

“I bought the two-level apartment I had dreamed of, but the risks were high, the amount was short — I had to take out a big loan and pay it off in a year because there was no other way. And that is about working like a horse. And I am almost at the finish line,” Svitlana said on social media in her year-end summary.

She was such a champ. She worked like a horse. A real energizer. I never saw her without a smile. Always positive and always saying: “There is nothing to be afraid of — you only live once.”Maryna, neighbor of the deceased Svitlana Blatova

“She was never afraid to do what she wanted. She was decisive, lived here and now. She was not afraid to open her own business during the war and grow it. And she loved her work so much. So much. She achieved everything herself. And she was constantly learning. Constantly. Course after course, qualification upgrades. Eternal student,” Maryna says about Svitlana.

“I promise to be with you more. My dream is to show you this world”

“I promise — this year I will be with you more, and we will definitely fly to Spain. Because it is my dream to show you as much of this world as possible,” Svitlana wrote, posting photos of her children. Who are now half-orphans.

It is now known that the girl is with her biological father and older brother. He has opened a fundraiser to help the family.

***

“My apartment looks exactly the same, just 100 meters away. I never went down from the bedroom on the second floor and said that if something hits, it does not matter — whether I am on the second or the first. It is so painful that the lesson turned out to be this terrible. It is so painful that we all treat the war as something normal now. It is so painful for this family, for these children.

Sveta had so many dreams, desires and goals. She simply went to sleep. She was simply preparing for her son’s birthday. And today she is gone,” Maryna wrote.

This report was prepared with the support of the International Renaissance Foundation. The report represents the authors’ position and does not necessarily reflect the position of the International Renaissance Foundation.