Oksana was a young mother who, after the death of her husband, was left alone with a 5-year-old child. And she was a beloved and respected doctor: an oncologist specializing in bone marrow transplants at Kiev’s largest children’s hospital, the Okhmatdyt. She was on her way there on Monday morning. As every day, he would have crossed the threshold of this building full of pain and hope, trying to save the lives of other children in the difficult battle against cancer. But Oksana Leontieva never made it to this hospital: her life ended in a car at an intersection in the city center, under the bombs of the Russian raid on the Ukrainian capital.
He had just left the child behind in kindergarten. And it’s a miracle that he was saved. His grandparents will now have to think about it, and they will also have to explain to him why a senseless war took his mother and maybe even his father. According to some Ukrainian media outlets republishing the news, the man died in the war six months ago while fighting for his country’s freedom.
Doctor Leontieva is one of the many names in the tragic balance sheet of what made the news as Putin’s revenge, officially decided after the attack on the Crimean bridge. Her story is one of the first to emerge among the many names from the dramatic list of victims: it goes around the world, relaunched by social media, where the photo of Oksana – published on her FB profile, shows her smiling – in the countryside wrapped in a burgundy wool coat, holding a bouquet of flowers – divided between sadness, tears and anger.
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Starting with his colleagues, the doctors and nurses at the children’s hospital in the capital: “A Russian terrorist killed a wonderful person with a rocket, one of the best doctors and a loving mother. Every day Oksana saved children suffering from cancer, gave happiness to parents and life to the little ones. He worked wonders for her. Today its existence has been destroyed by terrorists who are destroying our country and killing civilians every day,” wrote one of her team’s doctors, anesthetist Ekaterina Tkachenko.
There were also many messages and appeals in support of little Grisch, the doctor’s son, who was orphaned: the war took his mother away from him. And she took her father with her too. Grish is now with his maternal grandfather. And a fundraiser has already begun to help them move forward. Anton Gerashchenko, Presidential Advisor to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, stressed the great tragedy that befell this child. A horror that is very difficult to overcome.
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