Three Ukrainian toddlers, father, killed in Russian drone attack

cross-posted from: https://scribe.disroot.org/post/7171262

Twin boys aged one and a two-year-old girl were killed in the attack late Tuesday night on the family's house in the city of Bogodukhiv, around 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border with Russia.

It triggered an outpouring of anger and grief.

"This is deliberate terror against civilians, against families, against children. Russia is consciously killing our future," said Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko.

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"As a result of the strike, the house was completely destroyed and caught fire, and the family was trapped under the rubble," prosecutors said. ...

The children's mother, who is eight months pregnant, survived, but sustained "a traumatic brain injury, acoustic barotrauma, and thermal burns", prosecutors said.

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Their grandmother was also wounded in the attack and had been hospitalised, Bogodukhiv mayor Volodymyr Biely said in a statement.

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Amnesty International reports of brutal conditions for civilians amid Russian attacks on energy infrastructure, [citing testimonies](brutal conditions for civilians amid Russian attacks on energy infrastructure).

Many residents have relied on camping and kerosene stoves to heat bricks and water bottles. Some have resorted to dangerous coping mechanisms, such as setting up camping tents inside their bedrooms and lighting candles within them to fight the cold.

Svitlana, a pensioner from Kyiv, said that during blackouts: “I warm some water in a cup on a kerosene stove, fill up two bottles, one [goes] under my feet, the other in my hands, so as not to freeze. And we all sleep dressed… Dressed under duvets, all that we have, we put on.”

There are many people, including older persons and people with disabilities, who are isolated and confined to their apartments, without any means of communication, whose circumstances are likely much worse than those documented in this research and who may not live through this winter to tell their story ... Its strategy and tactics, including continued use of indiscriminate weapons and deliberate targeting of civilians, have caused widespread human suffering and seriously impacted Ukraine’s most vulnerable people, including children and older people.

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