Iryna Dmytriyeva posted a video early Thursday of her 4-year-old daughter, Liza, wearing green sneakers and happily pushing a pink pram as they walked through the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia. Shortly afterwards, Russian missiles hit.
Ukrainian officials on Friday confirmed that Liza was one of 23 people killed on Thursday in a Russian strike that left her mother in critical condition, as social media images of her life and her final moments attracted worldwide attention and the all-too-familiar drum beat of daily violence in the nearly five-month war in Moscow.
Mrs. Dmytriyeva and her daughter had an appointment that morning with a speech therapist who had taught Liza, who had Down syndrome, how to pronounce her first words. Shortly after Mrs. Dmytriyeva posted the video to Instagram, a salvo of Russian missiles struck the heart of the city, hitting a shopping center, dance studio and center for children with neurological disabilities.
photos shared online by the Ukrainian State Emergency Service and verified by DailyExpertNews, it was found to show Liza’s lifeless body next to the overturned pram, which was covered in blood.
A spokesman for Ukraine’s security service in Vinnytsia, Denys Zakabluk, confirmed in a telephone interview that Liza had died.
When Mrs. Dmytriyeva was recovering in a hospital — of the 80 people treated for injuries in the attack, Ukrainian officials said — her story and the bond with her daughter, painstakingly recorded on her Instagram account, served as a searing reminder of the toll that random Russian attacks demand a lot from Ukrainian citizens.
The Instagram feed of Mrs. Dmytriyeva was an ongoing testament to her love for Liza, followed by posts of milestones, struggles and words of encouragement to other parents.
“You have to educate yourself. The more resources parents have, the more the child gets,” she wrote in a message the day before the attack. “Make your own dreams come true!”
Ms. Dmytriyeva moved with Liza from the capital Kiev to Vinnytsia earlier this year and enrolled her in speech therapy classes at a center called Logoclub. Always smiling, Liza earned the nickname “Sunny Flower” at the center, her therapist, Alyona Korol, said in an interview.
As news of the Russian attack reverberated worldwide on Thursday, Ms. Korol that she saw a familiar pair of green sneakers in photos of the scene.
“When I saw those shoes, I recognized them,” said Mrs. Korol. “I knew it was our Liza.”
Images of the sneakers and pram, which began circulating on social media in the hours after the attack, were held up by Ukrainian leaders as an example of Russia’s disregard for civilian lives.
Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, said in a Twitter post Friday that she recognized Liza from a Christmas video she filmed with children in 2021. “The little girl managed to paint not only herself, her dress, but all the other kids, me, the cameramen and the director with paint for half an hour,” she wrote, sharing the video. “Look at her, alive, please.”
President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address: “The child was four years old!” and accused Russia of a litany of atrocities.
“No other state in the world allows itself to destroy peaceful cities and ordinary human life every day with cruise missiles and rocket artillery,” he said.
Russia has claimed it only attacks sites of military value – although some, such as Vinnytsia, are hundreds of miles from the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine. In a statement on Friday, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had attacked an office building in Vinnytsia where members of the Ukrainian armed forces were meeting “representatives of foreign arms suppliers”, adding that the attack resulted in the “elimination of participants in the conference. His account could not be verified.
On Friday, people placed flowers and a teddy bear on the spot where Liza was killed. A torrent of grief filled social media. A support group helping families of children with Down syndrome connect with each other posted updates on Ms. Dmytriyeva’s condition on Facebook and a link to a family fundraiser.
“Today our hearts bleed and our eyes are filled with tears as our multi-thousand family has lost one of their own,” the message read. “They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”