A total of 228 minors have been killed in the region by Ukrainian shells since fighting broke out in 2014, officials say
Flowers and soft toys at the memorial in memory of the children who died because of the shelling of Donbass by the armed forces of Ukraine, on the Alley of Angels in Donetsk, Russia. © Sergey Averin; RIA Novosti
On July 27, commemorative events were held across Russia in honor of the hundreds of children who have lost their lives in the nine-year-long conflict with Ukraine in Donbass.
The Day of Remembrance for the Children Victims of the War in Donbass was first introduced by the head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, in 2022 – before the republic officially became part of Russia. Now, lawmakers are proposing to make the event an official state day.
Speaking at a requiem event on the new DPR square in central Moscow, Nina Ostanina, the chairman of the State Duma committee on Family, Women, and Children, insisted that the whole country “from Kaliningrad to Kamchatka should freeze in a moment of silence to honor the memory of innocent victims of the fascist regime.”
Ostanina noted that she and other deputies of the lower house were seeking to ask the Russian government to make this a national day.
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According to DPR officials, a total of 228 children have been killed in their region alone since the fighting began in 2014, while another 789 have been injured.
On Thursday, Pushilin published a video from the ‘Alley of Little Angels’ in Donetsk, where the names of all the children who were killed by Kiev’s forces have been engraved. He noted that “unfortunately, this list continues to grow” and insisted on reminding the world “over and over again of the atrocities committed by the criminal Kiev regime.”
The date of June 27 was chosen to commemorate the young victims because, on that day in 2014, the city of Gorlovka came under heavy Ukrainian shelling, which killed 22 civilians.
Kristina Zhuk and her 10-month-old daughter Kira were among victims. The woman, who has since been dubbed the ‘Madonna of Gorlovka’, was walking in the park with her toddler when Ukrainian troops fired ‘Grad’ missiles upon the city. A journalist who happened to be there witnessed the woman’s last agonizing moments, providing one of the first pieces of photographic evidence that Kiev was using weapons indiscriminately against the people of Donbass.
The attacks on that day, which has since been dubbed ‘Donetsk’s Bloody Sunday’, left a total of four children dead.
