Funeral held in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast for five children killed by Russian missile
Five children from the Voronov family were buried in the settlement of Radushne in the Dnipropetrovsk Region (Oblast) on 19 October 2026, journalists from the public broadcaster Suspilne who attended the farewell ceremony reported. They were killed in a Russian missile strike on 30 July. They were 16-year-old Dominika, 14-year-old Viorika, 13-year-old Zakharii, nine-year-old Federika and 18-month-old Artem. They had been considered missing for more than two months until law enforcement officers confirmed their deaths through forensic examinations.
A Russian missile struck the home of the Voronov family, who had many children, on the night of 30 July 2026. The strike killed 10 family members: parents Olena and Artem, seven of their children and their 18-month-old grandson Artem.
The community buried five of the victims – the parents and children Mark, Azarii Ilai and Emiliia – on 3 August. The identities of the remaining five children could only be established after lengthy DNA examinations.
Relatives, friends, classmates of the deceased and village residents attended the farewell ceremony.
The family’s eldest daughter, Aurika, who lives abroad with her husband and their children, told journalists that she still could not believe the deaths of her loved ones.
Shortly before the tragedy, her mother had visited her, returning to Ukraine the day before the Russian strike. Aurika recalled that after reports of the shelling, she had hoped the missile had struck near her parents’ house. Contact with her relatives was lost, but despite this, she hoped until the very end that someone had survived.
The grandmother of the children who were killed, Nelia, said that she arrived at the site of the strike about half an hour after the explosion. At that point, only the foundations of the house remained.
Over the following months, the woman hoped that specialists would be able to find and identify all the dead so the family could bury them together.
The family’s neighbour, Inna, also recalled seeing the Voronovs’ home completely destroyed after the explosion. According to Inna, the missile hit the central part of the house, probably the children’s room.
On the night of 30 July 2026, Russian forces carried out a large-scale strike across Ukraine. The attacks killed and injured civilians in several oblasts.
In the settlement of Radushne, Kryvyi Rih District, a Russian Iskander-M ballistic missile hit the Voronov family’s house directly, almost completely destroying it.
According to local media outlet Pershyi Kryvorizkyi, the attack destroyed two houses, damaged five more and injured nine people.
After the strike, local residents set up an improvised memorial near the destroyed house. They brought flowers, children’s toys and photographs of the deceased.
Rescuers found the bodies of five people, as well as 17 body fragments that required additional examination.
Suspilne also previously reported the story of Danylo Voronov, the family’s eldest son who serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. During the Russian strike, he lost his parents, seven younger siblings and his 18-month-old son Artem.
According to the serviceman, his son often stayed with his grandparents. Danylo and his wife had just arranged a place for the boy in a nursery school in Mykolaiv and planned to take him home the following weekend.
The serviceman also recalled that his younger brothers looked after poultry, Dominika liked baking, and their father enjoyed chess. Shortly before the tragedy, Danylo planned to go fishing with his brother Mark and play chess with his father.
- Kremlin ruler Vladimir Putin and Russia’s Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova over the alleged unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied territories to Russia (March 2023);
- military officials Sergei Kobylash and Viktor Sokolov over strikes on Ukrainian civilian infrastructure (March 2024);
- Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity linked to missile strikes on Ukraine’s electric infrastructure between 10 October 2022 and 9 March 2023 (June 2024).
Human rights organisations and Ukrainian authorities emphasise that structural economic pressure remains a key tool to halt such atrocities. They urge every nation and individual government worldwide to strictly enforce global sanctions, close existing regulatory loopholes, and completely sever remaining commercial and technological ties with the Russian Federation. Civil society groups stress that any continued cooperation by foreign businesses directly contributes to the resources Moscow uses to sustain its ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
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