PRYLUKY, Ukraine — The four coffins were laid out for all to see in the central square of the historic Ukrainian town of Pryluky. Inside the first was Oleksandr Ivanchenko, a local train driver; in the last, his wife Yuliia. Between them lay their two children, Iryna, 13, and Maksym, 8.
The entire family was killed as they were sleeping by a Russian cruise missile on Vladimir Putin’s birthday.
“The war took this family from us. Russian aggression took four innocent lives,” said Oleksandr’s colleague Yulia Holoma in a eulogy, her voice breaking. “It took two children who never had the chance to know life.”
The Ivanchenkos were among three families wiped out in a single, massive strike on a residential building in Pryluky on Wednesday. The attack killed 22 people, including five children, and left 54 injured — the deadliest attack, and first of this scale, to hit this rural town since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Hundreds of mourners gathered around the coffins, among them the children’s classmates, who were memorizing their friends’ faces for the last time. Men knelt to stroke Maksym’s little head. Mothers held their children while sobbing uncontrollably, mascara running down their cheeks. One relative fainted.
The attack has stunned this small town in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region, a two-hour drive from Kyiv.
With slow progress on the front, and an impasse in negotiations, Russia has been ramping up attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in an interview with Greek media this week, said the war was in “a strategic stalemate” and that negotiations were proving “elusive.”
The serenity of the bright, autumnal morning barely concealed the depth of grief that has shaken this community. Half a mile from the square, survivors from Wednesday’s strike trawled through their cratered homes, salvaging whatever belongings and mementos they could from the wreckage. A slaughter like this would have been unthinkable five years ago. Now, it’s another chapter in a litany of tragedies.
The funeral procession, with heads bowed low, wound its way an hour north to the village of Burimka, through fields of willow trees, marigolds and blackened sunflowers. With no cellphone service, this remote village feels entirely removed from the carnage of the war. Pensioners in headscarves rode bicycles to the church gates to pay their respects. Entering the church, its eggshell blue walls adorned with Orthodox icons and Ukrainian embroidery, the sound of the mourners’ wailing consumed the room — a cacophony of incomprehensible loss.
Iryna loved to dance. She was popular and creative. She had dreams of becoming a lawyer or a K-9 trainer. Her best friend, Anhelina Lukashevych, 13, was too shy and upset to read a eulogy but showed The Washington Post what she had written on her phone. “I could trust her with all my secrets. She always kept them,” it read. After school they would walk through Pryluky together, drink smoothies and gossip about boys they liked.
Oleksandr hailed from a family of railway workers. He began his career in 2007 as an assistant driver on a diesel train, working between Pryluky and a nearby depot.
“We’ve lost a very good guy,” said Vladyslav Myroshnychenko, 49, who shared a driving shift with Oleksandr.
Across town, the Maksiuta family was also laid to rest, their 1-year-old son Kyrylo dressed in a baby-size suit jacket and Vyshyvanka, Ukraine’s national dress.
The bright sky had since darkened and this crowd, gathered around the family’s courtyard under rustling birch trees, now wept silently.
Mourners covered Kyrylo’s coffin with flowers and toys he will never play with.
His grandmother’s voice pierced the silence as a priest read the last rites.
“My baby, I had waited for you for so long,” she cried, kissing Kyrylo’s forehead and clasping the cold hand of her 23-year-old daughter Daria.
Serhiy Morgunov contributed to this report.
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