Within the picture, Anna Haidarzhy and her four-month-old son Tymofii are barely seen beneath the blood-stained blanket. They lie within the rubble, on the toes of rescue staff in black and fluorescent uniforms. Solely two arms, one from the 31-year-old mom and one from her son, stick out of the ceiling.
“It seemed like they have been saying goodbye,” one of many rescuers, Serhii Mudrenko, mentioned of the picture.
Their our bodies have been discovered within the smoking ruins of an residence block that had been attacked A Russian drone strike In March, twelve individuals have been killed within the southern Ukrainian metropolis of Odessa. The picturetaken by Ukraine’s state emergency companies, is widespread in Ukraine – and has been held up as a tragic image of the horrible toll on civilians Russia’s conflict.
All through the search, Serhii Haidarzhy, 32, Anna’s husband and Tymofii’s father, had stayed with rescuers as they combed by the rubble. He had survived the strike with the couple’s two-year-old daughter, Lizi, and was ready for a miracle.
“I hoped that Anichka would survive beneath the rubble,” Mr. Haidarzhy mentioned, utilizing her nickname.
The Haidarzhys had been married for greater than three years. Family and friends mentioned they have been inseparable and behaved like younger lovers. It was mentioned that he typically introduced flowers to his spouse. On his mobile phone, he gave her quantity as “My Love.” And each time they may, the couple organized to fulfill as much as benefit from the sunsets at a close-by river mouth.
“We loved each second,” he mentioned. “We lived life to the fullest.”
However now, as he stood close to the destroyed constructing after hours of looking for the March 2 assault, he realized that a part of his life was over. Then a pal, who was additionally a rescuer, seemed up at him from the rubble and took off his helmet. “I knew instantly,” Mr. Haidarzhy mentioned.
His story is simply one of many tragedies that many Ukrainians have skilled since then The complete-scale invasion of Russia started in February 2022. Russian assaults have killed hundreds of civiliansin accordance with the United Nations – desires shattered, households destroyed, love tales ending.
As an beginner photographer, he documented his household life intimately on Instagram. The pictures now characterize what was misplaced: travels by Ukraine along with his spouse, Household picnics on the Black Sea, Watching Tymofii develop up.
He mentioned he now needed to endure “this loss, this grief” that numerous different Ukrainians have struggled with, and the customarily insufferable questions that accompanied it: Why did the strike kill his spouse and never him? How can he make it clear to Lizi that she’s going to by no means see her mom and brother once more?
“It’s very tough,” he mentioned in an interview at his spouse’s residence Port metropolis of Odessa, his eyes stuffed with tears. “I would like some extra time to come back to my senses.”
Mr. Haidarzhy met Anna in 2020 at a Baptist summer time camp outdoors Odessa. She, the seventh little one of a pastor with 9 kids, had a “joie de vivre” and a brilliant smile, he recalled.
“It is love at first sight. “You catch one glimpse of her and also you simply know she’s the one,” he mentioned. When camp ended, he sat along with her by the campfire and advised her he appreciated her. “Subsequent factor you recognize, we’re holding fingers similar to that.”
Two weeks later he proposed. Anna, a florist and decorator, designed this Marriage ceremony ceremony, which came about at her father’s church in October 2020. They mentioned “sure” beneath an arch of dried flowers, purple roses and reeds that she had picked herself. She had made her personal gown.
“She might make one thing stunning out of nothing,” mentioned Nadiia Sidak, one among her sisters and one among many in Odessa who described her as heat, beneficiant and inventive.
Lizi, a cheerful woman with curly blonde hair, was born a 12 months after the couple’s wedding ceremony. Her father mentioned she has lengthy had hassle falling asleep and infrequently asks him to remain by her aspect whereas she nods off. Tymofii was born in October 2023.
At this level, the conflict towards Russia was already in full swing, and Odesa had additionally remained comparatively unscathed in the beginning of the preventing attacked virtually day by day. Moscow had focused the town’s port in an try to chop off sea exports, a lifeline of the Ukrainian financial system.
The noise of Russian assault drones, which feels like flying lawnmowers, has develop into acquainted to most Odessa residents.
Nonetheless, the couple “tried to proceed to reside and revel in life the way in which we at all times did,” Mr. Haidarzhy mentioned. As the top of an organization that makes airbags, he normally went to work early within the morning however tried to return within the early afternoon to assist his spouse with the youngsters, typically with a bouquet of flowers in his hand.
Every time potential, they left Lizi and Tymofii with their household so they may hike collectively alongside a river mouth close to their residence in northern Odessa.
In response to Lt. Col. Serhii Sudets, a member of the air protection models defending Odessa, round 1 a.m. on March 2, a drone flew over the river mouth, entered her neighborhood and crashed into her constructing.
That evening, Lizi and her father fell asleep of their bed room. Her mom was sleeping within the couple’s bed room subsequent door, holding Tymofii. This bed room collapsed after the strike. However not Lizi’s.
“Out of nowhere I hear this big explosion,” Mr. Haidarzhy remembers. He awakened and rushed to the opposite bed room. “I began screaming, ‘My love!’ However all I discovered was the door. Our bed room was gone.”
Because the constructing caught hearth, he and Lizi escaped from what was left of the residence and climbed onto the rubble. The rescuers arrived rapidly and commenced the search within the pitch black eveningChopping and eradicating concrete slabs with chainsaws and excavators.
All 9 flooring of the constructing had partially collapsed, crushing a few of its residents. Mr. Haidarzhy recalled an injured lady whose “screams have been simply heartbreaking.”
Residents who survived the assault mentioned they remembered Mr. Haidarzhy pacing close to the rubble and calling his spouse’s cellphone, hoping for a miracle. Hours handed, however there was no signal of her.
Then, at 5:56 p.m., he obtained a notification from his mobile phone supplier in regards to the quantity he had been desperately attempting to succeed in: “My love,” it mentioned, “is again on-line.”
The rescuers had simply found her cellphone subsequent to her physique and that of Tymofii.
All of Mr. Haidarzhy’s consideration is now centered on Lizi.
“Generally she asks the place her mom and Tymosha are, and we inform her they’re with Jesus in heaven,” he mentioned, utilizing a nickname for Tymofii. “Thank God she doesn’t perceive as a result of it could be traumatic for the kid.”
The deaths have introduced again painful reminiscences for Anna’s household. In 1968, in the course of the repressive rule of the Soviet Union towards spiritual teamsHer grandfather, a Baptist minister, was sentenced to 5 years in jail after which exiled to japanese Siberia. Her mom spent a part of her childhood there.
On a current afternoon, the household sat at a desk strewn with pastries and sandwiches and mirrored on three generations oppressed or killed by Moscow. Mykola Sidak, Anna’s father, mentioned the Kremlin was now attempting to reassert its rule over Ukraine “in order that Russia can get every thing from the USSR once more.”
The household’s story and grief have resonated broadly in Ukraine. On March 6, greater than 700 individuals attended the funeral, which came about in the identical church the place the couple bought married. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was additionally anticipated to attend, the household mentioned, however needed to cancel after every week A Russian missile landed a couple of hundred meters away from him throughout a go to to Odessa that day, killing 5 individuals.
The sound of the rocket explosion echoed by the funeral, startling mourners.
Reflecting on his life throughout a separate memorial service, Mr. Haidarzhy mentioned: “All the things occurred rapidly for us.”
“I could not consider I bought married and had such an exquisite spouse. Everybody requested me, ‘Are you able to consider this?’ I mentioned no.’ Then I couldn’t consider we had a toddler,” he mentioned, referring to Tymofii. “And now I can’t consider they’re not with us.”
Daria Mitiuk contributed to the reporting.