'I saw my wife's body' Civilian victims of Russia's onslaught

Civilian victims of Russia's onslaught

- Ruchi Kumar

On the night of 18 May, four-year-old Mark Ifiemenko was at home with his parents in Vasylkiv, a small town near the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. As the sounds of explosions reverberated close to their two-storey home, Mark's mother rushed him downstairs, along with his grandparents.

Later it would emerge that, overnight, Russia had launched one of the largest attacks on Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, with reports of more than 270 drones and missiles entering the country's airspace.

Mark and his family hid in a room they believed was the safest, removed by at least two walls from the exterior of the house - a rule Ukrainians have adopted to stay alive. His father, Sergey, rushed to the kitchen to turn off the gas. As he did so, a Shahed drone - the size of a small car - hit their house.

"There was smoke and dust everywhere, I couldn't even breathe. I started calling out to them [his family] and ran to the room they were in," said Sergey, 31, who had returned from service on the frontline the previous week.

"I first saw my father and mother, they were injured. I asked my mother where Anna [his wife] and Mark were, to which she replied Anna was no longer with us.

"I was holding a flashlight and when I pointed it down, I saw I was standing over my wife's body... a fragment of the drone had pierced her head. Still, even in death, she was curled protectively around Mark, who was crying."