The youngest child was 2 months old: the family killed by a Russian missile in Kryvyi Rih – photo

A mother and three children have been killed in a Russian attack on Kryvyi Rih. The youngest was a baby just 2 months old.

Source: Oleksandr Vilkul, Head of Kryvyi Rih City Military Administration

Details: On the morning of 11 November, Russia attacked Kryvyi Rih with a ballistic missile launched from Crimea. The strike destroyed the third and fourth sections and the roof of a five-storey residential building.

The attack claimed the lives of 32-year-old Olena Kulyk and her three children, 10-year-old Kyrylo, Demyd, who was nearly three, and two-month-old Uliana.

The only survivor of the family was the father, Maksym Kulyk. He survived because he was in another room at the time of the attack.

"My son had gone into the kitchen to cook breakfast. He survived; he fell to the first floor," Maksym's mother Iryna told Suspilne.Dnipro.

Iryna was at work when the explosion rang out. She says she immediately started calling her family, but there was no answer. Then she went to the apartment building where they lived.

The search and rescue operation went on until the morning of 12 November. At midnight, rescue workers uncovered Olena's body. Later, they found the two older children, and it wasn’t until the morning that they found the youngest.

"They were a very nice couple. They were always together! They're a lovely family," Yevhenia Bezymenko, who said she knew the family personally, wrote under an Instagram post.

ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih said that Olena Kulyk worked for its subsidiary, Stil Service. She was a cargo and luggage receiver at the railway shop and had been on maternity leave at the time of the tragedy.

According to the Kryvyi Rih-based Rudana TV channel, Maksym Kulyk and his mother Iryna also work for ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih. Maksym is a railway dispatcher.

The family are members of the Blahoslovinnia (Blessing) Church in the village of Radushne.

"They came to us about six or seven years ago," evangelist Mykola Koroliuk told the TV channel. "Since then, they have been helping the needy, distributing lunches to homeless people in Skhidnyi and Sotsmisto [districts of Kryvyi Rih – ed.] and at the House of Comfort. Maksym took part in all our events and helped out at children's shelters.

They were People with a capital P. Olenka was a member of our church too, but she was busy with her three children. She was a lovely woman, a wonderful mum to her kids, and she had a very kind heart. She supported Maksym in his help for the needy."

The funeral service will be held on Thursday, 14 November at the Salvation House of Prayer, 22A Sobornosti Street.

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