When his family was about to run away from home, six-year-old Maxim Franko told his mother that he was scared.
“Mom, I don’t want to die,” he said. ‘I’m too young.’
‘What are you talking about?’ she asked, trying to calm him down. “Nothing will happen to you.
A few hours later Maxim was dead. He was killed on February 26 while sitting on his mother’s lap clutching his beloved white hamster Bodia.
He left his short life innocent and more frightened than ever; more than any six year old should ever be, anywhere.
The picture shows 6-year-old Maxim, who was killed when his family fled the Vinogradar district, near Irpen, a satellite town that became the front line in the war.
For some time, his body lay unattended on the floor of a crowded Kiev hospital, covered only by a sheet of cardboard. [see picture bottom right]. He was buried without the presence of his next of kin.
Today, using these pictures from the Franco family’s photo album, we can tell the story of this “all child” who became a victim of Putin’s terrible war.
On Saturday, we told how Maxim Vovo’s 13-year-old cousin survived the same attack despite being hit by five bullets, including one in the face.
Maxim’s mother, Anna Chechelnitskaya, is still recovering from a serious head injury she received during the incident. But it is Anna’s psychological trauma that will never be corrected. She was almost mad with grief.
13-year-old Alina is being treated at the hospital (pictured). Her brother Maxim was one of the first victims of the war in Kyiv. Their mother Anna, 31, was also wounded. All of them were shot when they fled the city.
The body of 6-year-old Maxim, covered with a cardboard sheet, on the floor of the hospital.
However, on Monday, she agreed to give a heartbreaking interview to the Mail. She wants the world to know that her son exists and how happy they were together despite the hardships of their lives.
She wants us to know exactly what happened to him when the Russians invaded Ukraine.
Anna, 31, has a daughter, Alina, now 13, from a marriage that ended in divorce. Maxim was the product of other relationships that also came to an end.
She and her two children lived in an apartment in the Svyatoshinsky district of Kyiv. Money was tight. She worked as a cleaning lady at two jobs, at an IT company and at a private housing estate, to make ends meet.
Growing up in this harsh environment, Maxim was mature beyond his years.
“He was only six, but he acted like an adult,” she says. “He always tried to help me whenever possible; he washed the dishes, cleaned the room, did his homework, and I didn’t have to help or even encourage him. He was only in his first year of school.
Anna’s father died last month, on her birthday. Then came the Russian invasion.
“When it all started, my cousin Alexander invited us to visit his family’s apartment in the Vinogradar microdistrict, not far from Irpin. [a satellite town that became a frontline],’ she said. “But the shelling there quickly intensified.
“Maxim, Alina and Vovo were very scared. Therefore, both of our families decided to leave the city together and go to relatives in Revna in western Ukraine.”
Six of them were packed in the blue salon of Alexander “Lada”. Maxim adopted his hamster Bodya and their white cat Snezhka, which means “Snowball”. All the children were in the back seat of the car, Maxim was on Anna’s lap.
“We successfully passed two checkpoints of the Ukrainian military,” says Anna. “But when we were on the bypass road right in front of the Ministry of Infrastructure, the car came under heavy fire.”
The shelling – it is still not clear from which side – was strong and point-blank.
Shells set fire to the city of Irpin, the death toll in Ukraine grows with smoke
Alexander at the wheel died instantly. Vova’s mother Natalya was hit by at least ten bullets, but they all passed through her body without hitting her vital organs.
“I was wounded in the head, near the ear,” Anna recalls. “Alina was wounded by bullets in her right arm and left knee. But Maxim was already dead when we pulled him out of the car.
“I got out of the car with my son and walked with him, screaming, until at some point I lost consciousness.
When I came to, I heard the screams of other people, and they walked around me while I was lying. Someone called an ambulance and it arrived 25 minutes later, according to Alina, who remained calm the whole time, even though she was also injured.
“I don’t understand why we were shot,” Anna continues. “The windows of the car were transparent. Whoever it was could surely see that he was carrying women and children. Alexander didn’t even drive fast.”
The remains of the Retroville shopping center in Kyiv, bombed overnight
The injured, with the exception of Alexander, whose body remained in the car for several days for unexplained reasons, were taken to the nearby Okhmat Children’s Hospital. Snow the cat and Bodya the hamster ran away when the car doors opened, and they are still gone.
“In the first days in the hospital, I could not communicate with anyone, even with Alina,” says Anna. “I pushed her away, my wounded daughter. I wouldn’t let her console me. I shouted: “Where is my son?”
“I was not allowed to see Maxim for several days until I was invited to the morgue to identify his body. I could see that his front was unharmed. He was shot in the side or in the back; seven bullets hit him.”
Anna was then transferred to a hospital in distant Lvov, where, ten days after the attack, she underwent surgery to remove a bullet from her head. Now she is in Revna with Alina, in her brother’s apartment.
View from a badly damaged building after Russian attacks
Maxim was buried while Anna was being treated for her injuries.
“My son was buried next to his father by my ex-husband,” she says. “He wasn’t even a father [Maxym]but he did it for me.
Maxim’s biological father did not respond to Anna’s messages with a broken heart. Anna starts to cry, hysterically.
Again and again she tells us: “I had to save Maxim. My duty as his mother was to protect him, and I failed,” and then, “Why else should I live?”
You also have a daughter, I remind her. “Poor Alina remembers most of all [about the attack],’ she said. “Much more than me.
But she doesn’t want to talk. She needs advice. Anna too. “I still smell Maxim when we sometimes slept together in the same bed,” she sobs. — I hear his voice. I dreamed about him since he died.
A policeman stands guard at the wreckage of a shopping center that was hit by Russian air strikes in the Podolsky district of Kyiv.
The war continues and the population of Kyiv is in the middle of a second 35-hour lockdown in a week.
The curfew will end today at 7 am local time. A series of explosions rocked the city this afternoon. Smoke rose from both the northwest and the northeast.
A photo posted on social media shows a stump of a Russian missile sticking out from under the surface of a shallow park lake in the Obolonsky District. He was shot down by Ukrainian air defense units.
But as an illustration of the real horror of this war, nothing can compare with the picture taken by a staff member of little Maxim Franko, lying under a cardboard shroud on the floor in a children’s hospital.
It should be visible far and wide. It’s wrong to disinfect what’s going on here. It only helps Putin and other warmongers in this world.
Maxim’s mother wants you to see what war really means.