Ukraine Buries Four-Year-Old Girl Killed By Russian Missile Attack In Vinnytsia

Mourners in central Ukraine have buried a four-year-old girl who was killed by a Russian missile strike in the city of Vinnytsia last week, as officials and analysts warned that Moscow’s operational pause of recent days had come to an end, signalling further death and pain to come.

- Peter Beaumont

The killing of Liza Dmitrieva, who had Down’s syndrome , as she was walked in a pushchair through a crowded square was reported around the globe, becoming a poignant symbol of the heavy civilian cost of Russia’s invasion.

Wearing a crown of white flowers, Liza was buried yesterday, as an Orthodox priest burst into tears and told weeping relatives that “evil cannot win”.

Liza’s grandmother Larysa Dmitrieva caressed the child as she lay in an open coffin with teddy bears in Vinnytsia’s 18th-century Transfiguration Cathedral. “Look, my flower! Look how many people came to you,” Larysa said.

Liza’s father, Artem Dmytriev, stood silent, with tears flowing down his face.

The funeral took place as footage emerged of the girl’s badly wounded mother, Iryna, clearly distraught and speaking to a local television channel after regaining consciousness.

Lying in a hospital bed, a video of her daughter visible on her phone, she told reporters: “The world doesn’t care. It sees what is happening but it does not protect us. How many times have we asked to close the sky? And the world just looks at how Ukraine is being murdered. Our children are being murdered, our soldiers and our people.