A 12-year-old boy, Artem Koval, died in a Kyiv hospital on Monday, Oct. 26, after a week of fighting for his life following a Russian drone attack on a crowded park in Nova Vodolaha, Kharkiv region.
According to a statement from Nova Vodolaha Settlement Council, his 8-year-old sister Arina was killed on the scene, along with five other civilians. The youngest victim, Angelina, was just over a year old when she was killed sitting in her stroller.
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“Russia took away the children’s future and their family’s meaning of life, committing yet another bloody crime against the most innocent,” the council wrote, confirming that the parents had lost both of their children in a single moment.
Strike hit families in a crowded park
The attack took place on Oct. 19, around 4:30 p.m. when families with children had gathered near a cafe and fountain in the town’s central park, Yuvileinyi.
At the time, Kharkiv regional governor Oleh Syniehubov clarified the casualty figures, identifying the dead as three women aged 28, 34 and 36, a man approximately 40 years old, and two girls aged eight and just over one year old.
Among those dead was the infant’s mother, Inna, who later died in the hospital, President Volodymyr Zelensky said. He condemned the strike on the civilian site as an act of “absolute brutality.”
“These are terrible photographs, but behind them are shattered lives and the truth about this war,” he said after sharing photographs of the site.
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The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office said preliminary evidence indicated Russian forces had used a Geran-3 drone, a jet-powered variant of the Iranian-designed Shahed.
The strike on a civilian site prompted the police to open a war crimes investigation under Article 438 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code. As of Oct. 3, Ukraine’s National Police has opened nearly 244,000 criminal proceedings linked to Russia’s invasion, including 226,766 war crimes cases.
Although such attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law, they reflect a broader pattern that has defined the war, now in its fifth year.
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