‘Tell Mum I didn’t cry’: Heartbreaking phrases from eight-year-old boy injured by Putin rocket… unaware it killed his mom
Little Matvei was walking back home from the park with his mother when Vladimir Putin‘s ballistic missile struck and killed her.
The eight-year-old boy was knocked to the ground and woke not knowing that Vita, 50, was among the 19 who died on Saturday in the strike on Kryvyi Rih, the home city of Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky.
Agonisingly, when his older sister Anastasia visited him in hospital, he turned to her and said: ‘Tell Mummy that I didn’t cry.’
Anastasia, 28, said: ‘I will never be able to forgive the Russians. They took away the most precious thing from me.
‘Why did they come with the war? Why did they come to my house? What did we do to them?’
Matvei’s arm is badly damaged and doctors are battling to repair the limb.
Anastasia said: ‘I want him to remember nothing. He told me, ‘I saw a rocket fly and a light’. He loved our mum very much.’
The brave sister has shared an image of herself with Vita at the park taken just an hour before the strike by the missile, which was tipped with a cluster munition for maximum damage.
Little Matvei, 8, (left) was walking back home from the park with his mother Vita, 50 (centre) when she was struck and killed by a Russian missile in Kryvyi Rih. The pair are pictured with Matvei’s sister, Anastasia, 28 (right)
Vita, 50, and her husband Konstantin, 52, with their son Matvei, eight, who was injured in Saturday’s deadly blast
People bring flowers and toys to a playground in Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine where nine children died in a Russian ballistic missile strike
The rocket struck a civilian area involving a restaurant, homes, shops and a playground, killing nine children and leaving dozens wounded.
Anastasia revealed how she had returned home with her two-year-old baby moments before she heard the explosion.
She said: ‘I immediately tried to contact my mum but her phone wasn’t answering.
‘When I returned to the site of the missile strike, there was already a cordon in place. In the very first video of the strike that hit Telegram, I identified my mother.’
Lubov Vasilyevna, 58, lost her grandson Nikita, 15, and orphaned nephew Kostya, 16, who was under her care, in the attack.
She said: ‘They’d just gone for a walk. I told them not to go out, to stay. But they’d arranged to meet their classmates. The boys died instantly. Kostya’s leg was torn off.’
Both children were ‘smart, clever boys’ with Kostya dreaming of becoming a train driver and Nikita getting top marks in his class.
‘They were children dreaming about the future,’ said Ms Vasilyevna. ‘And those accursed Russians just took them from us – damn them. I curse the Russians to the seventh generation.
Burning cars, debris in the streets and residential buildings with windows blown out show the aftermath of the missile strike
The rocket struck a civilian area involving a restaurant, homes, shops and a playground, killing nine children and leaving dozens wounded
On his Instagram page, Zelensky shared a selection of photographs that laid bare the extent of Russia’s latest attack
Photographs taken from the scene show bodies lying in the streets moments after the attack
The Ukrainian leader was born in Kryvyi Rig, which had a pre-war population of around 600,000 people. Pictured: A car’s windscreen appears smashed following the strike
‘Let them see the same happen to their children and grandchildren.’
She added about the ongoing attempts to negotiate a ceasefire: ‘I don’t know who negotiates with whom, what kind of peace is this when more and more children are dying.’
Mr Zelensky has spoken movingly following the attack on Kryvyi Rih, naming all nine children killed in a social media post.
The atrocity comes as Ukrainian officials are set to visit Washington this week to discuss the minerals deal on the first trip after Donald Trump laid into Mr Zelensky in the Oval Office five weeks ago.
The US President yesterday appeared to take a swipe at Russia over its bombing campaign against civilians.
Mr Trump said: ‘We would like them to stop. I don’t like them bombing on and on, and every week thousands of young people being killed.’
Additional reporting by Vazha Tavberidze
