Many Ukrainians who were killed in the Russian strike near the field

Their lives are intersecting around a set on Friday evening in Kryvyi Rih, a city in central Ukraine.

Kostiantyn Novik, 16, came with his cousin to hang out with friends. Serhi Smotolok, a 57 -year -old welding, was breastfed near a balcony of a restaurant, after his work day. Radislav Yatsko, 7 years old, was sitting in the back seat of his parents while driving them next to the field, and went home in the afternoon in their country’s hut.

In a moment, the vital scene turned into a massacre: a Russian missile struck near the stadium, raining the fragments that tore everything on its way.

Kostantin and his cousin were killed immediately, as Costantin’s leg was torn by the explosion. Mr. Smotoluk was hit by missile shrapnel and bleeding to death on the balcony. Radislav died while shrapnel exploded part of his skull.

His father, Rodion Yatsku, said: “Everything was covered with blood.” He begged the paramedics who arrived shortly after to save his son’s life. “Then a man came to our car, and he looked inside and said:” He has finished. “

the Last Friday’s attack, 19 civilians were killed, including nine childrenWhich makes it a bloody strike against children since the beginning of the comprehensive invasion of Russia, According to the United Nations. Send the attack, the worst on Kryvyi Rih during the war, shock waves throughout Ukraine, which The National Mourning Day was announced on Sunday. The Western allies expressed their solidarity, as the embassies in Kiev reduced their flags to half of the employees that day.

For the residents of Kryvyi Rih, the birthplace Continuous negotiations for the ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia. Moscow continues to send a student of missiles and drones to Ukrainian cities away from the front lines, despite the risks to civilians.

Russian Ministry of Defense Claim The strike was killed by 85 Ukrainian and Western military officers in the restaurant near the stadium. But security footage reviewed by the New York Times showed that the restaurant was full of women who were attending an event in the cosmetic industry, and the employees were cleaning the room just minutes before the attack.

“They simply kill children and civilians,” said Anna Yatsku, the mother of Radislav, on Sunday, on the eve of her son’s funeral. “There were no soldiers, only civilians.”

“All talks about the ceasefire are just empty words,” she added.

Kryvyi Rih, the 600,000 industrial city, was hit about 40 miles from the front lines, regularly by drones and Russian missiles. Two days before a strike on Friday, four residents were killed.

Amidst hardship, residents yearn for joy.

When Costantin, 16, asked his aunt his legal will, Liopov Sfooroba, if he and his cousin were able to accommodate friends on the field, she hesitated, but she agreed in the end. Two adolescents enjoyed escaping the shadows of war there, and often working on clear seating seats and chest machines scattered through sandy terrain.

“They said they just wanted to go to a picnic and see their friends,” said Ms. Sfurauba, 65. “Once they got there, the explosion happened.”

From her apartment a few buildings, Olga Yaroshenko, 66, saw a large column of smoke and dust from the field. She was her first thought of her partner, Mr. Smutolook, the welding that was drinking beer in the restaurant. They were together for eight years, and they found love later in life. They were providing money for a new car – the dream of Mr. Smotolook.

When Mrs. Yaroshenko rushed to the strike site, she saw the bodies of a woman, a teenager and several children, some of which were already covered with blankets from the paramedics. “The entire region was as if it were a corpse,” she recalls. “There were screams, screams – unbearable.”

In chaos, you could not find Mr. Smotolok and prove in the hope that he had brought it out safely. Then her phone rang, and his number was flashing on the screen. “I felt comfortable -” should be alive! Remember thinking.

She answered the phone, just to hear a strange person’s voice: “This is the investigator talking.

On Sunday, the area around the stadium is still scars of the massacre: blood scars on the sidewalk, a piece of human meat on a restaurant chair. The nearby buildings were shattered by the windows, and a deep hole was created by the effect of the missile, a few yards from the field.

It is still not clear exactly the type of weapons that Russia fired in the park. The United Nations, which sent a team to inspect the region, and the local authorities believe that Russia has used an ISKANDER missile, which exploded several meters over the garden, and the area rains with shrapnel.

Mr. Yatsko, Radislav’s father, said that his family was inseparable to the point that he used to think if the missile or drones were all shocked together. At least, he said: “No one will suffer” from the pain of losing a member of his family.

But on Friday, Radislav was only killed. His parents, his 8-month-old sister, Adelena, and his grandmother-and both of them in the car when he hit the missile-from the conclusions and scratches.

Mrs. Yatsku Radislav gave birth to after she struggled for years of pregnancy. When he arrived, she said, “He made everything much better.”

He loved the animals, and spent hours in the family hut collecting cockroaches, lizards and butterflies, when he did not save the hedgehog from the crowded streets. In a memorial to the school on Monday, one of his professors said that she had never heard a boy talking to this tenderness about his little sister. When Mrs. Yatsku was pregnant with Adelena, she said, Radislav was kissing her stomach every night before bed.

On his funeral on Monday, Mrs. Yatsku, who was wearing a black band to represent her mourning, was staring at her son’s face carrying an open coffin in a small wooden Christian church. A gray hat hidden his head injury. It was a red scar that extended from his forehead to his right eye. The bruises are the only sign of shock.

“He is not he! It is not it!” Mrs. Yatsku cried, then the name Radislav multed the name three times, as if she was trying to awaken him from a long sleep. Before burial, his parents put a luxurious animal in his arms.

In the days after the attack, the temporary memorial arose throughout the park, with stuffed games, candy bars, roses and candles covering the seats, swinging, and filtering Teeter where some children died. By Monday evening, the largest pile, almost high chest, stood in the middle of the field, hiding a fun round.

Mrs. Yatsku said that she is eager for a life that can run and play freely. She said, “But at the present time,” even a children’s playground is not safe. “