PUTTING A FACE TO PUTIN'S VICTIMS
Young Ukrainian volunteer killed delivering aid to dog shelter near Kyiv: ‘She was a hero’By Ashleigh Stewart Global News
Updated March 8, 2022
Young Ukrainian woman Anastasiia Yalanskaya was killed as she delivered food to a dog shelter in Kyiv.
As Russian troops closed in on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, Anastasiia Yalanskaya insisted she would stay, even while her friends and family fled around her.
The 26-year-old Ukrainian woman was delivering food to a dog shelter in Bucha, 30 kilometres outside Kyiv, on Friday when she was shot and killed alongside two men she had been volunteering with.
Yalanskaya’s friends and family say her car was deliberately targeted at close-range by Russian troops. Global News has been unable to confirm the circumstances of her death.
Friends do not know why she was targeted, but believe Russian troops are increasingly killing civilians at random as a way to scare the population into submission.
2:05 Ukrainians resist as Russia hammers major cities
“I asked her to be extra cautious. That nowadays, a mistake costs extremely much,” her husband Yevhen Yalanskyi says.
“But she was helping everyone around. I asked her to think of evacuation but she did not listen.”
Despite denials from Russian President Vladimir Putin, the number of civilian casualties in Ukraine is mounting – though the total number remains unclear.
As of March 1, the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said it has recorded 752 civilian casualties. The next day, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said 2,000 civilians had been killed.
Friends believe she was killed at close-range
Yalanskaya had been delivering food to a dog shelter in Bucha that had been without supplies for three days. The town has been devastated by Russian bombardment. It is part of the line of Ukrainian defence as Russian troops make their push to Kviv.
Her final Instagram story, posted just hours before her death, shows her sitting in the backseat of a vehicle, smiling into the camera, beside bags of dog food.
Yalanskaya’s best friend, Anastasiia Hryshchenko, who evacuated to Vinnytsia, 250 kilometres southwest of Kyiv, raised the alarm about her friend after she hadn’t heard from her in several hours.
View image in full screenA photo of Yalanskaya and the volunteers she was killed alongside on Friday.
Hryshchenko says she had been in constant contact with Yalanskaya, due to dangerous areas around Kyiv where fighting has intensified in recent days, including the area where her friend was delivering food and medical supplies.
When Yalanskaya didn’t respond for several hours, she contacted the father of a man that Yalanskaya had been volunteering with. The trio were due to return to his house after their trip.
READ MORE: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy has survived multiple assassination attempts amid Russian war: reports
He told her he had found their car, riddled with bullets, not far from his house, Hryshchenko says. They had delivered the dog food and had almost gotten home.
The damage to the car indicated it was fired at from a close distance and from a “heavy weapon,” she says.
Though there has been no formal identification of her body, Yalanskaya was carrying her driver’s licence and has distinctive tattoos that were identified by friends. Her body, along with those of the two men she was with, remain at the man’s father’s house, because the fighting is so intense no one can get through, Hryshchenko says.
Hryshchenko says she had been in constant contact with Yalanskaya, due to dangerous areas around Kyiv where fighting has intensified in recent days, including the area where her friend was delivering food and medical supplies.
When Yalanskaya didn’t respond for several hours, she contacted the father of a man that Yalanskaya had been volunteering with. The trio were due to return to his house after their trip.
READ MORE: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy has survived multiple assassination attempts amid Russian war: reports
He told her he had found their car, riddled with bullets, not far from his house, Hryshchenko says. They had delivered the dog food and had almost gotten home.
The damage to the car indicated it was fired at from a close distance and from a “heavy weapon,” she says.
Though there has been no formal identification of her body, Yalanskaya was carrying her driver’s licence and has distinctive tattoos that were identified by friends. Her body, along with those of the two men she was with, remain at the man’s father’s house, because the fighting is so intense no one can get through, Hryshchenko says.
Yalanskaya and her husband Yevhen Yalanskyi.
Yalanskyi says ‘she loved animals.’.
“Not being able to help her last journey is very painful for me,” Yalanskyi says. He and Yalanskaya were separated but remained extremely close, he says, a fact which other friends also spoke about. He is currently in Sri Lanka.
“She was one of the best human beings I knew. She was committed to help, to help her friends and relatives and whoever needed help,” Yalanskyi says.
“She loved animals. We had a dog and a cat. She was the best partner I ever had.”
'We will all be together soon, safe and at peace'
Yalanskaya, a job recruiter, had been keeping a daily blog on Telegram to inform her friends and family of her surroundings as she delivered aid around the region.
On Saturday, February 26, she wrote on the channel in Russian, after having spent the night sleeping in a parking garage due to bombing fears: “Now I realize even better how important it is to be able to just see the loved ones whenever you want.”
“We will all be together soon, safe and at peace. I believe in it.”
“Not being able to help her last journey is very painful for me,” Yalanskyi says. He and Yalanskaya were separated but remained extremely close, he says, a fact which other friends also spoke about. He is currently in Sri Lanka.
“She was one of the best human beings I knew. She was committed to help, to help her friends and relatives and whoever needed help,” Yalanskyi says.
“She loved animals. We had a dog and a cat. She was the best partner I ever had.”
'We will all be together soon, safe and at peace'
Yalanskaya, a job recruiter, had been keeping a daily blog on Telegram to inform her friends and family of her surroundings as she delivered aid around the region.
On Saturday, February 26, she wrote on the channel in Russian, after having spent the night sleeping in a parking garage due to bombing fears: “Now I realize even better how important it is to be able to just see the loved ones whenever you want.”
“We will all be together soon, safe and at peace. I believe in it.”
Yalanskaya’s friends say ‘the world needs to know she’s a hero.’.
In the preceding days, she chronicled her volunteer work and spoke of her talks with the Ukrainian Armed Forces at checkpoints, saying she was proud of being Ukrainian “for the first time in my life.”
On Tuesday, she wrote about helping a kindergarten in Brovary, just outside Kyiv, where 40 children were without food and diapers, as well as bringing aid to a military hospital and bringing food for volunteer dogs.
“We are not scared. We are united like never before. We help each other. We stand for hours at roadblocks and thank those who protect us,” she wrote. “We will win.”
On Wednesday, Yalanskaya wrote her longest post, detailing her thoughts and feelings from her week of volunteering.
In the preceding days, she chronicled her volunteer work and spoke of her talks with the Ukrainian Armed Forces at checkpoints, saying she was proud of being Ukrainian “for the first time in my life.”
On Tuesday, she wrote about helping a kindergarten in Brovary, just outside Kyiv, where 40 children were without food and diapers, as well as bringing aid to a military hospital and bringing food for volunteer dogs.
“We are not scared. We are united like never before. We help each other. We stand for hours at roadblocks and thank those who protect us,” she wrote. “We will win.”
On Wednesday, Yalanskaya wrote her longest post, detailing her thoughts and feelings from her week of volunteering.
2:11 Further Russian troop surge in Ukraine invasion
She spoke of needing to drive with the windows half-open to hear which side of the road the shelling was on and to “step on the gas” while driving past the forest.
Hryshchenko says Yalanskaya had told her the fighting was particularly intense around the forest.
“Do not slow down” signs must be obeyed, Yalanskaya wrote, otherwise “you can hear random sh_t exploding right next to the wheels.”
She wrote of visiting people to drop off supplies 20 kilometres from the fighting and 200 metres from the fighting.
READ MORE: Canadian troops in Latvia ready for ‘whatever we have to face,’ commander says
“The ‘hotter’ the location you are heading to, the more people there will be at the roadblocks trying to dissuade you from going. But when they see the determination in your eyes, they will wish you strength, they will thank you, and ask you to be careful.”
On Thursday, Yalanskaya outlined her plans for the next day — the day she would die.
“I am tired. Third day in the car,” she wrote. “Could not get to Irpin. They blew up the bridge where I went yesterday.
“Tomorrow we’ll try to enter from another side.”
'She was never prouder to be Ukrainian'
Yalanskaya’s friends are reeling after her death, though they are not surprised that she was killed helping people, as it was what she was known for.
Hryshchenko says Yalanskaya was a “kind and caring person” and “she could energize everyone around her.”
While people had asked her to evacuate for her own safety, Yalanskaya was “absolutely sure she was needed there,” she says.
She spoke of needing to drive with the windows half-open to hear which side of the road the shelling was on and to “step on the gas” while driving past the forest.
Hryshchenko says Yalanskaya had told her the fighting was particularly intense around the forest.
“Do not slow down” signs must be obeyed, Yalanskaya wrote, otherwise “you can hear random sh_t exploding right next to the wheels.”
She wrote of visiting people to drop off supplies 20 kilometres from the fighting and 200 metres from the fighting.
READ MORE: Canadian troops in Latvia ready for ‘whatever we have to face,’ commander says
“The ‘hotter’ the location you are heading to, the more people there will be at the roadblocks trying to dissuade you from going. But when they see the determination in your eyes, they will wish you strength, they will thank you, and ask you to be careful.”
On Thursday, Yalanskaya outlined her plans for the next day — the day she would die.
“I am tired. Third day in the car,” she wrote. “Could not get to Irpin. They blew up the bridge where I went yesterday.
“Tomorrow we’ll try to enter from another side.”
'She was never prouder to be Ukrainian'
Yalanskaya’s friends are reeling after her death, though they are not surprised that she was killed helping people, as it was what she was known for.
Hryshchenko says Yalanskaya was a “kind and caring person” and “she could energize everyone around her.”
While people had asked her to evacuate for her own safety, Yalanskaya was “absolutely sure she was needed there,” she says.
Yalanskaya decided to stay in Kyiv as her friends and family fled, despite protestations from loved ones.
“She was a very good person, she was always helping everyone, she wouldn’t do anything else.”
Hryshchenko says civilians are now increasingly being targeted, especially around Kyiv.
“They’re just randomly shooting people. They see civilians and they just shoot them,” she says.
“They want people to be scared and horrified. But it only makes our people braver.”
Valeriia Gorska, a former colleague and friend, said “the world should know that she’s a hero.”
“She was helping people. She believed in people.
“I knew her three years ago, and I knew her now, and I saw a change in her recently. She was so strong. And she was never prouder to be Ukrainian.”
“She was a very good person, she was always helping everyone, she wouldn’t do anything else.”
Hryshchenko says civilians are now increasingly being targeted, especially around Kyiv.
“They’re just randomly shooting people. They see civilians and they just shoot them,” she says.
“They want people to be scared and horrified. But it only makes our people braver.”
Valeriia Gorska, a former colleague and friend, said “the world should know that she’s a hero.”
“She was helping people. She believed in people.
“I knew her three years ago, and I knew her now, and I saw a change in her recently. She was so strong. And she was never prouder to be Ukrainian.”
© 2022 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
Three Ukrainians ‘targeted by Russian forces’ after delivering food to animal shelter
Three Ukrainians in their 20s were killed after delivering food to an animal shelter in Bucha, a city west of Kyiv.
Russia maintains that their soldiers are not targeting civilians. However, in a statement on Monday, the United Nations recorded 406 civilian deaths and nearly double the amount of injuries in Ukraine.
In late February, Dmitry Peskov, who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, said the Russian military is not targeting residential areas in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported.
On Tuesday, the Vatican urged Russia to stop armed attacks on Ukraine and to guarantee humanitarian corridors.
A Vatican statement said Cardinal Pietro Parolin spoke on the phone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Parolin also repeated the Vatican’s willingness “to do anything” to help bring about peace.
The statement said the cardinal told Lavrov that Pope Francis was “deeply worried” about the war.
Parolin appealed “that armed attacks stop and that humanitarian corridors be guaranteed for civilians and rescue workers and that the violence of weapons be substituted by negotiations,” the statement said.
Ukrainian civilians began leaving two besieged areas on Tuesday after Russia opened “humanitarian corridors” for them, but Kyiv said Russian forces had shelled an evacuation route from the port city of Mariupol.
Earlier, in its own statement about the call, the Russian foreign ministry said Lavrov set out Moscow’s position on the conflict in Ukraine.
Lavrov “outlined the principled Russian position regarding the causes and goals of the special military operation being carried out in Ukraine,” the Russian statement said.
Both parties expressed hope that a fourth round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv would be held as soon as possible to agree on the main problems underlying the crisis and to stop hostilities, the Russian ministry added.
Ukraine has said it would welcome Vatican mediation and Parolin, who ranks second to Pope Francis in the Vatican hierarchy, has said previously it is willing to “facilitate” dialog” between Russia and Ukraine.
Parolin has previously described the war as having been “unleashed by Russia.”
Francis has not yet blamed Russia by name publicly but has implicitly rejected Moscow’s use of the term “special military operation” for its invasion of Ukraine.
“In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing. This is not just a military operation but a war which sows death, destruction and misery,” Francis said in his weekly address to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.
Francis has dispatched two cardinals to help distribute aid to refugees fleeing Ukraine and both have said they will try to enter the country.
The Vatican and the then-Soviet Union began a dialog in earnest after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visiting Pope John Paul II that year.
Full diplomatic relations with Russia were established in 2009 and have been cordial.
Relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church were at first spotty after the break up of the Soviet Union but have improved significantly in recent years.
In 2016 Francis became the first pope to meet a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church since the great schism that split Christianity into Eastern and Western branches in 1054.
With reporting by Reuters
Three Ukrainians in their 20s were killed after delivering food to an animal shelter in Bucha, a city west of Kyiv.
© Provided by National Post
Anastasia Yalanska, 26, was killed on Friday. Her colleague told the Kyiv Independent that she was “very dedicated and upbeat, everyone loved her.”
Serhiy Ustymenko, 25, Maxym Kuzmenko, 28, and Anastasia Yalanska, 26, were driving in an SUV together, according to the Ukrainian publication the Kyiv Independent . They were returning from the shelter to pick up Ustymenko’s parents when they were fatally shot on Friday by soldiers in a Russian vehicle, witnesses said.
Ustymenko’s father, Valeriy, ran to the car but the passengers were already dead. Their bodies were brought to his basement, where they remain; They cannot be buried safely because there is constant shelling in the city.
Witnesses told the media outlet that the shots came from a Russian vehicle described as “either a tank or an infantry fighting vehicle.”
Photos of the victims were obtained by the Kyiv Independent.
Serhiy Ustymenko, 25, Maxym Kuzmenko, 28, and Anastasia Yalanska, 26, were driving in an SUV together, according to the Ukrainian publication the Kyiv Independent . They were returning from the shelter to pick up Ustymenko’s parents when they were fatally shot on Friday by soldiers in a Russian vehicle, witnesses said.
Ustymenko’s father, Valeriy, ran to the car but the passengers were already dead. Their bodies were brought to his basement, where they remain; They cannot be buried safely because there is constant shelling in the city.
Witnesses told the media outlet that the shots came from a Russian vehicle described as “either a tank or an infantry fighting vehicle.”
Photos of the victims were obtained by the Kyiv Independent.
© The Kyiv Independent Maxym Kuzmenko, 28, was in an SUV that was fatally shot after helping to deliver food to an animal shelter. 
© The Kyiv Independent Serhiy Ustymenko, 25, was found dead by his father on Friday in an SUV. He was on his way to pick up his parents after delivering food to an animal shelter with Kuzmenko and Yalanska.
The Guardian also reported on the event, saying Yalanska’s car was believed to be “targeted by Russian forces.”
In a Twitter post, Andriy Piddubny, a colleague of Yalanksaya, said “it was not an accidental shot” and the “civilian car was shot at point-blank range.”
The Guardian also reported on the event, saying Yalanska’s car was believed to be “targeted by Russian forces.”
In a Twitter post, Andriy Piddubny, a colleague of Yalanksaya, said “it was not an accidental shot” and the “civilian car was shot at point-blank range.”
“The car was (obviously) civilian,” a friend of Kuzmenko, named Dmytro Zubkov, told the Kyiv Independent. “Maxym was wearing a hat with a pom pom. They didn’t look like the military at all.”
Russia maintains that their soldiers are not targeting civilians. However, in a statement on Monday, the United Nations recorded 406 civilian deaths and nearly double the amount of injuries in Ukraine.
In late February, Dmitry Peskov, who is Russian President Vladimir Putin’s press secretary, said the Russian military is not targeting residential areas in Ukraine, the Associated Press reported.
On Tuesday, the Vatican urged Russia to stop armed attacks on Ukraine and to guarantee humanitarian corridors.
A Vatican statement said Cardinal Pietro Parolin spoke on the phone with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Parolin also repeated the Vatican’s willingness “to do anything” to help bring about peace.
The statement said the cardinal told Lavrov that Pope Francis was “deeply worried” about the war.
Ukrainian civilians began leaving two besieged areas on Tuesday after Russia opened “humanitarian corridors” for them, but Kyiv said Russian forces had shelled an evacuation route from the port city of Mariupol.
Earlier, in its own statement about the call, the Russian foreign ministry said Lavrov set out Moscow’s position on the conflict in Ukraine.
Lavrov “outlined the principled Russian position regarding the causes and goals of the special military operation being carried out in Ukraine,” the Russian statement said.
Both parties expressed hope that a fourth round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv would be held as soon as possible to agree on the main problems underlying the crisis and to stop hostilities, the Russian ministry added.
Ukraine has said it would welcome Vatican mediation and Parolin, who ranks second to Pope Francis in the Vatican hierarchy, has said previously it is willing to “facilitate” dialog” between Russia and Ukraine.
Parolin has previously described the war as having been “unleashed by Russia.”
Francis has not yet blamed Russia by name publicly but has implicitly rejected Moscow’s use of the term “special military operation” for its invasion of Ukraine.
“In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing. This is not just a military operation but a war which sows death, destruction and misery,” Francis said in his weekly address to crowds gathered in St. Peter’s Square on Sunday.
Francis has dispatched two cardinals to help distribute aid to refugees fleeing Ukraine and both have said they will try to enter the country.
The Vatican and the then-Soviet Union began a dialog in earnest after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, with former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visiting Pope John Paul II that year.
Full diplomatic relations with Russia were established in 2009 and have been cordial.
Relations between the Vatican and the Russian Orthodox Church were at first spotty after the break up of the Soviet Union but have improved significantly in recent years.
In 2016 Francis became the first pope to meet a leader of the Russian Orthodox Church since the great schism that split Christianity into Eastern and Western branches in 1054.
With reporting by Reuters
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