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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
World
Alahna Kindred

Girl, 10, 'shot dead by drunk Russian soldiers as family forced to bury her in garden'

One family have been left grieving after their little girl was shot dead by "drunk Russian soldiers".

Anastasia Stoluk, 10, also known as Nastya, was killed in a village near Kyiv after Russian troops reportedly started "shooting everywhere they could see" after a Ukrainian boy fired a gun in the air.

The soldiers refused to allow Nastya's mother, Luba, to go to the cemetery so she was buried in the yard, her cousin Anya Stoluk, 18, said.

Anya's adoptive mother Vera Dmitrienko told The Times : "People say that the soldiers just got so bored.

"They looted all the stores, of course they got a lot of alcohol ... and got drunk and started shooting.

Follow all today's latest updates on the conflict with our live blog

This harrowing image shows a child after she was pulled from the rubble following a Russian airstrike (Ukraine Parliament/Twitter)

“They shot into Nastya's house, she was there with her uncle, and she died immediately. Her uncle was taken to hospital and we still don't have any information from him."

Dmitrienko said soldiers had started shooting after a Ukrainian teenage boy found a gun and fired it in the air.

She added: "The soldiers heard it but since they were so drunk they didn't know where it was from so they just started shooting everywhere they could see.

People remove debris at the site of a military base building that was destroyed by an airstrike, in the town of Okhtyrka in the Sumy region (via REUTERS)

“They shot in four houses and in one of those houses was Nastya."

Moscow has called its actions in Ukraine a "special military operation" as distressing photos emerge of bloodied children.

One photo shows a little girl covered in blood after she was hit by one of Vladimir Putin's bombs in Ukraine.

Horrifying images of Putin's unjustified war have shown countless civilian deaths - including innocent children.

Evacuees cross a destroyed bridge as they flee the city of Irpin (AFP via Getty Images)

Ukrainians are continuing to flee their homes as the conflict escalates, with the Russian military slowly advancing towards Kyiv.

In Sumy, a Russian airstrike has left 21 people dead, including two children, as Russian pilots 'dropped 500-kilogram bombs'.

Footage taken at the scene of the shelling shows the devastating aftermath of the attack, with small bodies being pulled from the rubble and blood-splattered rocks.

One of a team of men working to excavate the bodies is seen gently laying a blanket over the face of an unmoving body, before moving away to help elsewhere.

A video of the scene, too graphic for the Mirror to show, was shared to Twitter by Ukraine ’s Ambassador to Austria, Olexander Scherba, who described it as the “Barbaric bombardment” of a residential area in Sumy on Monday night.

“18 dead civilians. Many children,” he wrote.

Sumy authorities later confirmed the death toll from the strike now sits at 21.

The United Nations (UN) has reported that around 1.5 million people have fled the country since the invasion started.

However, many more people are believed to be trapped by the violence.

The UN has recorded 406 deaths and 801 injuries among Ukraine’s civilian population since Russia's invasion began.

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