Ukrainian investigators demand answers after Russian strike on Odesa kills 12, including 5 children

By Svitlana Vlasova, CNN

(CNN) — Serhiy Haidarzhy is likely alive because his wife Anna fell asleep.

Like every night, Anna was in the bedroom with their 4-month-old baby boy Tymofii, while Serhiy was putting their older daughter Liza to bed in her own room.

“Usually, very often, I fall asleep in the room with Liza, then Anya wakes me and tells me to come to her,” he said at a memorial service on Sunday.

“That night she fell asleep with Tymofii, and didn’t call me, and it so happened that the Lord took them to himself,” he added.

Anna and Tymofii were killed in a Russian attack early on Saturday. A drone turned their apartment in Odesa, southern Ukraine, into a pile of concrete and bricks, with only the narrow room where Serhiy and Liza, who is just two-and-a-half-years-old, were sleeping remaining intact.

Serhiy then spent 16 agonizing hours waiting in the courtyard of the building, hoping that his wife and baby were alive. When rescue workers finally found them, both were dead.

“I was very worried that they suffered, but the doctors said they died in their sleep. They were found in the same position they fell asleep, they were together,” he told the congregation, according to the video of the event viewed by CNN.

A relative of Anna told CNN that Liza doesn’t understand what happened to her mother and brother. She has been told that they’re now in heaven.

Odesa, a strategic city in southern Ukraine, is no stranger to Russian strikes. But the attack on Saturday against a high-rise residential building was particularly brutal. Twelve people were killed and 20 others injured, some of them critically.

Locals were left reeling with sadness and anger, and the site of the attack is now covered with flowers, candles and toys.

Investigators are trying to determine what type of drone was used in the attack. The damage it caused to the building was significant, as was the number of people who were killed, which has led some to speculate the drone might have been modified to cause bigger impact.

“It’s possible that the drone’s warhead could have been additionally reinforced, as such destruction is not something that happens very often. We see that the enemy is gradually increasing the combat part of the drones,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Southern Operational Command, told CNN.

Entire family killed

Five children, including Tymofii, were among the 12 people killed, according to Odesa officials.

Three of the children were from the same family, killed alongside their parents Tetyana and Oleh Kravets, who both served in Ukraine’s armed forces.

The couple and their 7-month-old daughter Lisa, were found on Saturday. Eight-year-old Zlata and 9-year-old Sergiy were the last to be pulled from the rubble on Sunday.

The fifth child killed in the attack was only identified by local media as 3-year old Mark. His father Vitaliy was also killed, while his mother Anastasia was injured and is in an intensive care unit.

The Regional Directorate of the Territorial Defence Forces South, the unit that Oleh Kravets served in, described him as a “serviceman who was an example in his courage and bravery, determination and resilience, performing his military duty with full dedication and devotion to his homeland.”

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