"If Given the Chance, I Will Shoot Putin"…A Woman's Cry After Losing Husband and Daughter Before Her Eyes

"The body was so mangled it was unrecognizable"

On the 7th (local time), black smoke was rising in the village of Rubizhne in the Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk provinces) of eastern Ukraine. The photo is unrelated to specific expressions in the article. [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Heo Midam] The story of a woman who lost her husband and daughter right before her eyes due to a Russian military attack has been reported by the British BBC, drawing deep sympathy.

On the 9th (local time), BBC shared an interview with Viktoriya Kovalenko. According to the report, Kovalenko fled with her husband Petro, her eldest daughter Veronika (12), and her youngest daughter Barbara (1) on the 5th of last month, during the early days of the war.

As they were leaving the suburbs, their vehicle became immobilized due to a pile of stones placed on the road. Her husband stopped the car and began removing the stones. However, shortly after, the vehicle was engulfed in flames following an attack by Russian forces.

Kovalenko recalled the moment, saying, "There were explosions and gunfire. Soon my ears went deaf, and the rear window of the vehicle shattered," adding, "My husband shouted for me to get out of the car."

She continued, "When my head was cut by shattered car glass from the explosion and started bleeding, my eldest daughter Veronika began to cry," and with tears, she said, "As my daughter screamed and her hands trembled, I went outside to calm her, but right before my eyes, my eldest daughter collapsed. Veronika’s head was blown off." Her husband, who was removing the stones, was nowhere to be seen.

Kovalenko urgently fled the scene to take her youngest daughter, whom she was holding, to a safe place. Afterwards, she sought refuge in another vehicle parked on the road, and when Russian shelling continued, she hid inside a nearby building.

The next day, the mother and daughter were captured by patrolling Russian soldiers and taken to a school in Yahidne. They were confined underground for about 24 hours. At that time, there were about 40 people in the same space. In this area, people were reportedly not allowed to leave even to use the restroom and had to use buckets inside.

Kovalenko asked the Russian soldiers to bring her husband’s and daughter’s bodies to the school so she could bury them. She also requested her ex-husband, the father of her deceased eldest daughter, to go to the accident site and take photos of the bodies.

Upon seeing the photos, Kovalenko was deeply shocked. The bodies were so mutilated that they were unrecognizable, and the vehicle had already been completely burned, leaving nothing behind.

On the 12th of last month, a week after the incident, the bodies of her husband and daughter arrived. Kovalenko said, "That day, the Russian soldiers called me and said they would show me where my family would be buried and told me to follow them."

At the location, there was one large box and a smaller box placed on the ground. Kovalenko said, "We began to cover the boxes with soil, but the attack started again," adding, "We had to flee again before we could finish burying them." Kovalenko and her youngest daughter later evacuated to Lviv in western Ukraine and have recently started psychological treatment.

When asked what she would say to those who did this to her family, Kovalenko expressed her anger, saying, "If I ever get the chance to shoot Putin, I will definitely kill him."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.