At home, in school and in hospital: how hundreds of Ukrainian children are dying in Russian attacks

Children look at sandbags covering the windows at a pre-school in Lviv, Ukraine. Photograph: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

On the night of 18 May, four-year-old Mark Ifiemenko was at home with his parents in Vasylkiv, a small town near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. As the sounds of explosions reverberated close to their two-storey home, Mark’s mother rushed him downstairs, along with his grandparents.

Later it would emerge that overnight, Russia had launched one of the largest attacks on Ukraine since the start of the full-scale invasion, with reports of more than 270 drones and missiles entering the country’s airspace.