Ukraine mother mourns son killed in Russian strike
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Olena Stohina, a mother in Ukraine, described the death of her 29-year-old son, Yevhenii Ionov, when Russian rockets and drones struck Kyiv on August 20.
She waited near his burning home hoping rescuers could reach him, and filmed the scene believing they would save him. Ionov was one of at least 17 people killed in the attack.
July saw a surge in civilian deaths from Russian attacks in Ukraine, with at least 437 people killed and 2610 injured according to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission. This represents the highest monthly death toll since May 2022, when the conflict began to escalate. Stohina’s friend, Ruslan Kerimov, remembered Ionov as a sincere and grounded person. Stohina shared a cherished memory of regular breakfasts with her son at McDonald’s, a ritual they continued even with her mother recently.
She expressed the feeling that before the war, news from distant conflicts felt remote, reduced to mere statistics. Now, her family has become one of those statistics, as the United Nations has recorded more than 16,000 civilian deaths in Ukraine over the past four and a half years of war. She asked people to remember her son.
