Baby Kira was killed in Saturday’s attack on an apartment block in Odesa
(Picture: east2west news)The first pictures have emerged of a baby girl and her mother killed in a Russian missile strike in Odesa - as outrage grows in Ukraine over the attack.
Missiles fired from a strategic bomber killed eight people in their apartments, Ukraine said, including three-month-old baby girl Kira.
Her mother Valeria Glodan, 27, and grandmother - from Russia - were also reportedly killed.
Four weeks after Kira was born on 4 January, her mother posted: “These were the best 40 weeks of my life.
“Our baby is already a month old.
“Her papa presented her with her first flowers.
“This is an entirely new level of happiness.”
There is outrage in Ukraine at Vladimir Putin over the missile strike on Odesa which hit the family’s residential block while supposedly targeting a military target using a Tu-95 strategic bomber flying over the Caspian Sea.
The mayor of Odessa Gennadiy Trukhanov said in front of the blitzed apartment block: “Behind my back is what the [Russian] occupiers name ‘a military object’.
“What they hit today with their high-precision weapon, this is what they call a military object.
“Eight people were killed, one of them a three-month-old baby girl, a resident of Odesa, who wasn’t given a chance to see life.
“Scumbags you are, may you burn in hell.”
Eighteen people were injured, according to reports.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “The world has not seen such barbarism in 80 years.”
His chief of staff Andriy Yermark said: “Nothing is sacred…. The evil will be punished.”
Kira’s family had Russian roots, and spoke Russian.
Her loving grandmother Liudmila Yavkina, 53, was from Novosibirsk - Siberia’s largest city.
After her wedding to Kira’s father Yuriy on 30 July 2019, Valeria, a brand manager who was also studying journalism in Odesa, posted: “This was the best day!
“Thank you my darling husband, this was the happiest start of our family history.
“We will remember the wedding day forever - and thank you to all our family members and friends for being with us.”
The broken-hearted father wrote: “My dear ones, Kingdom of Heaven! You are in our hearts!”.
A message from Ukraine’s parliament said: “A charming young mother and her three-month-old child…
“Their lives were taken by Russia today when a Russian rocket hit a residential building in Odessa….RIP, our angels.”
The fury was echoed in comments from ordinary Ukrainians.
One read: “What an absolute, utter horror. Why did they die, why? Where on earth is justice?”
Another said: “Dear God, why did you leave us all? Why did this beautiful family have to break, why did you end the life of three generations, the young mother, her angelic baby daughter, and the loving grandmother…??
“What have they done? My heart will never heal.”
Another said simply: “We will never forgive this.”
One more read: “The whole Ukraine is crying today, every person in Odessa is heartbroken.
“There is nothing to justify what happened. We will never forget this.”
It came as Mr Putin was shown in footage apparently attending a midnight mass at Christ the Saviour Cathedral close to the Kremlin in Moscow, to mark Orthodox Easter.
He held a lighted candle and when Patriarch Kirill - head of the Orthodox Church - said “Christ has risen”, Mr Putin joined other worshippers with the reply: “Truly he is risen”.
The Russian defence ministry claimed it had hit a logistics terminal at a military airfield where Russia said a “large consignment” of weapons from the US and European countries was being stored.
