Beautiful and serene in a crown of white flowers, four-year-old Liza Dmytrieva, who was killed by a Russian missile strike, was buried on Sunday in central Ukraine as an Orthodox priest burst into tears and told weeping relatives that “evil cannot win.”
Dmytrieva, who had Down syndrome, was en route to see a speech therapist with her mother when Russian missiles struck the city of Vinnytsia on Thursday last week, far from the front lines. At least 24 people were killed, including Dmytrieva and two boys aged 7 and 8, and more than 200 were wounded, including Liza’s mother.
“Look, my flower. Look how many people came to you,” Dmytrieva’s grandmother, Larysa Dmytryshyna, said, caressing Dmytrieva as she lay in an open coffin with flowers and teddy bears in Vinnytsia’s 18th-century Transfiguration Cathedral.
Photo: AP
Liza Dmytrieva’s mother, 33-year-old Iryna Dmytrieva, remained in an intensive care unit in grave condition. The family did not tell her that her daughter was being buried on Sunday, fearing it could affect her condition.
“Your mommy didn’t even see how beautiful you are today,” Dmytryshyna said, weeping.
When the war started, Liza Dmytrieva and her family fled Kyiv, the capital, for Vinnytsia, a city 270km to the southwest, which until Thursday was considered relatively safe.
Shortly before the explosion, Iryna Dmytrieva had posted a video on social media showing her daughter straining to reach the handlebars to push her own stroller, happily walking through Vinnytsia.
After the Russian missile strike, Ukraine’s emergency services shared photographs showing her lifeless body on the ground next to her blood-stained stroller.
“I didn’t know Liza, but no person can go through this with calm,” Orthodox priest Vitalii Holoskevych said, bursting into tears. “Because every burial is grief for each of us. We are losing our brothers and sisters.”
He paused and continued in a trembling voice: “We know that evil cannot win.”
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