He wished to see his brother released from captivity: story of boy killed in Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih – video

The Russian forces launched a missile attack on the centre of Kryvyi Rih on the night of 21 September, killing 12-year-old Maksym Shaulskyi and his grandmother Valentyna in their home.

Friends and acquaintances say that the boy's greatest dream was to hug his brother, who is now in Russian captivity.

The deaths of Maksym and Valentyna were reported in the local newspaper Svoi. Kryvyi Rih.

"Our mother was irreplaceable. Family came first for her.

She learned how to use the internet and sent greetings every morning and evening. Now everyone will wake up and there is no message from mum," Natalia, Maksym's aunt and Valentyna's daughter, shares her grief.

It is known that Maksym's mother used to serve in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, and his older brother, Mykyta, defended Mariupol and is still in Russian captivity.

In the words of a family friend, Oksana Latanska, the boy dreamed of seeing his older brother again and hugging him.

"I did not have the honour of knowing Mrs Valentina personally, but I know her children and grandchildren well. Maksym Shaulskyi is the bright sunshine of our large family community, a blue-eyed, bright child, a boy who dreamed of hugging his older brother who has been in enemy (Russian – ed.) captivity for three years.

I cannot believe it, despite the fact that at dawn I saw the mutilated bodies firsthand, despite the fact that I had been accompanying the orphaned family throughout this terrible day," Oksana wrote in her post.

The 12-year-old boy took an active part in the Free Azov campaigns in support of captured Ukrainian soldiers, said Olena Patiak from Zaporizhzhia.

Maksym believed in Ukraine's victory and was worried about every defender captured by Russia, said Liubov Riabko, founder of the charity foundation.

"This is incredibly painful and unfair... Maksym Shaulskyi is just a 12-year-old boy who dreamed of hugging his older brother Mykyta, waiting for him to be released from captivity and being together again as a family. 

His heart was beating to the rhythm of hope and faith that the day would come when he would see his brother. Maksym was a little fighter who believed in victory," the woman wrote.

Ukraine’s Air Force reported that the Russians attacked the oblast with four Iskander-M ballistic missiles. The house of the family of the deceased was completely destroyed. A total of three people were killed.

In early September, Yevhenia Bazylevych and her three daughters, the youngest of whom was 7 years old, were killed in a Russian attack on Lviv.

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