The Obedinsky family was torn apart by this war. Kira’s father Yevhen Obedinsky, a former captain of Ukraine’s national water polo team, was killed on March 17 when Russian troops shelled the city. At that moment Kira was orphaned, her mother died when Kira was two weeks old.
Days after her father’s death, Kira was taken to a hospital in the Donetsk region by Russian-speaking soldiers after she was injured by a landmine while trying to flee Mariupol with her father’s girlfriend.
“That [Russian] Military came running, they stopped two cars and took us to Manhush, to a hospital because we were bleeding. Then they took us from Manhush to another hospital in Donetsk,” Kira said.
Speaking to CNN from Kyiv earlier this month, Oleksander told CNN he feared he would never see his granddaughter again because it was almost impossible to travel across the war-torn country to bring her back. He said he spoke to the hospital where Kira was being treated and was told she would eventually be sent to an orphanage in Russia.
Their grateful reunion, more than a month after they last saw each other, was orchestrated by negotiators from Ukraine and Russia – and included an epic international trip.
On Tuesday, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Kira in hospital to celebrate her return and also gave her an iPad to keep her entertained while she recovers.
Oleksander said he told Zelenskyi that Kira was “tired but happy” and thanked him for his granddaughter’s safe return. “No one believed [it would be possible]. But thank God we made it,” he told CNN.
Rescuing Kira from the Moscow-backed Separatist-controlled area was no easy task. Following media reports of their plight, the Ukrainian government informed her grandfather that they had reached an agreement allowing him to travel to Donetsk to pick up his granddaughter – but it was no easy feat.
Undeterred, Oleksander immediately embarked as instructed on a grueling four-day journey by train to Poland, a flight to Turkey, a second flight to Moscow, followed by a train ride to the southern Russian city of Rostov, and after another drive to Donetsk, he finally reached a tear-streaked spot Kira, he said.
After an emotional reunion — with countless hugs, they said — the pair then made their way home, taking the same long route back to Kyiv.
“I missed him”
At the Okhmatdyt Hospital in Kyiv, Kira cherishes the only possession her father had that she was able to keep after his death: his cell phone. It was her only connection to her family while she was in Donetsk.
She had contacted Oleksander – her only remaining blood relative – by taking to Instagram and texting her grandfather’s friend to explain where she had ended up, she said. Instagram posts from February showed Kira innocently posing for selfies, thankfully unaware of how life would be turned upside down in just a few short weeks.
This bond with her past life was crucial for the young girl as she found herself in a Donetsk hospital surrounded by unfamiliar faces and longing for her grandfather.
“I was glad I could call her. I don’t know how much time had passed,” Kira sighs, adding, “I waited a long time for him to pick me up. I waited at the second hospital too… I missed him.”
The couple were reunited on April 23, Oleksander said, after last seeing each other on March 10. He is painfully aware that he would never have been able to ensure his and Kira’s safety if he had tried to rescue them alone and without the Ukrainian government’s help.
“Of course I wouldn’t have dared to do it myself. Because this venture could have ended with neither me nor Kira being released,” said Oleksander.
During her stay in Donetsk, Kira was interviewed by a Russian state media channel, which aired a video in which the young girl happily talked about how she was sometimes allowed to call her grandfather. The interview was used as “proof” that she had not been kidnapped, according to a Russian TV presenter. However, Kira paints a very different picture of her experience.
“It’s a bad hospital there,” she told CNN. “The food there is bad, the nurses are screaming and the hospital is not good.”
Weeks later, Kira has recovered from some of her injuries, but she painfully recalls having splinters removed from her body.
“I was taken to Donetsk by ambulance at night, they removed splinters from me at night. From my ear. I screamed and cried a lot because I felt their manipulation in my ear. Here it was on my face, on my neck , and on my legs,” she said.
Hideout in the ruins of Mariupol
Now safe in Kyiv, Kira is also able to reveal exactly what happened in Mariupol and how the family’s happiness ran out as she tried to flee the city, which was quickly encircled by Russian forces.
She tells how she lived between shelling and “loud bang”, hiding with her father’s friend Anya and their children between the destroyed walls of their house. Tanks rolled into the street, Kira said, and she recalls seeing men in military uniform approaching her yard.
Kira says that after their home was bombed on March 16, the family was trapped in the basement and neighbors helped pull them out of the rubble. Her father never showed up. For three days, Kira, along with her father’s friend and their children, took shelter in another basement before attempting their fateful escape from the city.
It was Kira’s friend who kicked a mine while running, she says. Kira recalls that her ears bled afterwards and that the family friend’s dog absorbed most of the blast. The group survived but suffered shrapnel injuries.
Kira said that was when Russian forces – alerted to the group’s whereabouts by the blast – picked up the group and took them to the city of Manhush for immediate treatment in one hospital and then in an ambulance to another The group had to split up, leaving Kira alone, wounded and frightened, while the others were taken elsewhere.
The ordeal is now miles away from Kira as she plays games on her new iPad while absentmindedly talking about downloading more apps to play music and expressing her excitement at seeing her grandfather’s friend reunite soon.
As the family begins to return to some semblance of normalcy, the fact that they are back together, much to their relief, hasn’t escaped their notice.
“I still can’t believe it finally happened. Because we believed it, but many said it was impossible. It was a really difficult process,” said Oleksander.
They say they are overwhelmed by the President’s efforts in their case, which has garnered worldwide attention.
But for Zelenskyy, Kira is just one of many Ukrainian children who were deliberately deported to Russian-controlled areas. Moscow, meanwhile, has denounced claims of forced deportations as lies and claimed that Ukraine has hampered its efforts to “evacuate” people to Russia.
“We are most concerned about the children,” said Zelenskyy when visiting Kira on Tuesday. “Children are our future. We will fight for every Ukrainian child to return home.”