Olga, a 27-year-old Ukrainian lady gravely injured in Kyiv while shielding her infant from shrapnel bursts, remembered her amazement when she saw blood covering her child after a missile strike smashed glass across the room.
“I was wounded in the head, and blood started flowing. And it all flowed on the baby. I couldn’t understand, I thought it was her blood.” Olga explained as she sat on a bed at the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital.
Photographs of Olga holding her baby, Victoria, with her head bandaged and her upper body covered in cuts, have gone viral on social media, reflecting the high toll paid by civilians in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As Dmytro, Victoria’s father, removed the girl, Olga screamed that her daughter had been cut.
At least 60 civilians have been murdered in Kyiv, according to Ukrainian authorities, since Russia initiated a special military operation on February 24, several of them were killed in missile attacks on residential buildings.
Olga, who did not give her last name, claimed she had awoken to feed the 6-week-old baby and had already wrapped her in a blanket to keep her warm when the missile struck.
Olga was taken to the hospital with many cuts to her head and body, but the baby was unhurt other than a scratch and bruises.
“There’s nothing left for us to do but be positive and believe that it was the worst, most horrific thing that could have happened to us,” Dmytro said, who was awakened by the sound of shattered glass.
