The mother of a Ukrainian high jumper was killed overnight in a Russian airstrike on the city of Kharkiv and the heartbroken athlete pays tribute to her today.
Kateryna Tabashnyk, 28, announced that her mother was one of at least 11 civilians killed in two blasts that hit residential areas of Kharkiv overnight and injured another 40 in one of the deadliest nights of bombing since the war began.
Tabashnyk, who is believed to be in Munich for the European Athletics Championships, posted a tribute on Instagram, along with footage of her bombed-out apartment and a caption directed at Russia that read: “How I hate you.”
One of Tabashnyk’s old competition bibs, apparently kept as a trophy by her mother, could be seen among the rubble of the apartment.
Kateryna Tabashnyk, 28, announced today that her mother was killed overnight in a Russian airstrike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv
Tabashnyk’s mother died when a Russian bomb destroyed her home overnight – one of two attacks that killed 11 people and wounded 40 others
Among the ruins of the building, Tabashnyk noticed an old race number of hers that her mother had kept as a trophy
She wrote: “My mom. I love you very much. The Russian world took my mother’s life. [They] ‘freed’ me from my homeland and my whole life.’
Governor Oleh Synehubov announced the death toll in the two attacks on Thursday morning and said the first attack came late Wednesday.
Russian bombs hit a residential building in the Saltivka district, killing at least seven people and injuring another 20.
Then, in the early hours of Thursday, more bombs fell – this time killing at least four and injuring 20 others in the village of Krasnohrad.
Three children are said to be among the injured, including a 12-year-old.
Russia denied attacking civilians and said it did in fact blow up a military base and killed 90 “foreign mercenaries”.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address on Wednesday about the attacks: “We will not forgive, we will take revenge.”
“There was a rocket attack… on a dormitory… The building was completely destroyed. We determine the exact number of dead and wounded.
“A heinous and cynical attack on civilians that has no justification and demonstrates the powerlessness of the attacker.”
“My mom, I love you very much,” the athlete wrote on her Instagram page in the heartbroken tribute on Thursday morning
Tabashnyk’s grief flies at Russian denials as Moscow insisted it had not hit a block of flats but destroyed a military base
Tabashnyk, a high jumper, is said to be in Munich, where the European Athletics Championships are currently being held (file)
Kharkiv resident Tamara Kramarenko said the dormitory where she lived was hit by a rocket on Wednesday.
“Pang, gray. Gray fog … we have three windows – nothing else! The stairs started collapsing, people started helping each other,” she told Portal.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the eastern Donetsk region, told Telegram that three civilians had been killed in Russian attacks in the region in the past 24 hours.
The attacks came just hours before President Zelenskyy was due to receive talks with UN chief Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recept Tayyip.
Zelenskyy is to discuss a deal to ship grain out of the country to address global food shortages and the safety of the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant.
Guterres arrived in Lviv on Wednesday, near Ukraine’s border with Poland, where talks will take place.
Deputy UN spokesman Farhan Haq said that among other things, Guterres will “discuss with the various authorities its overall efforts to do everything in its power to bring the temperature down as much as possible.”
Last month, Turkey and the UN helped negotiate a deal that paved the way for Ukraine to export 22 million tons of corn and other grains that have been stuck in its Black Sea ports since Russia invaded on February 24.
A house is on fire in Kharkiv, northern Ukraine, after Russian missiles hit the city overnight, killing at least five people
Rescuers carry a person extricated from the rubble of a residential building destroyed by a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv
Rescuers work on the site of an apartment building destroyed by a Russian missile attack in Kharkiv
A separate memorandum between Russia and the United Nations aimed to remove roadblocks to shipments of Russian food and fertilizer to world markets.
The war and blocked exports have greatly exacerbated the global food crisis, with Ukraine and Russia being key suppliers.
Grain prices peaked after the Russian invasion, and while some have since returned to pre-war levels, they remain significantly higher than before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Developing countries are particularly hard hit by supply bottlenecks and high prices. Even if ships are now leaving Russia and Ukraine, the food crisis is not yet over.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters this week that Guterres’ trip to Ukraine will allow him “to see first-hand the results of an initiative. this is so vitally important to hundreds of millions of people.’
Dujarric added he expected Thursday’s talks to address “the need for a political solution” to the war.