Family grave with body of five-year-old found in Izium: what is known about them so far

Mykhailo Zahorodnii, Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia

Now that the exhumation of bodies on the site of mass graves in Izium has started, terrible evidence of the Russians’ crimes continues to emerge. 

One such crime is the murder of the Stolpakov family: Olena (31), Dmytro (33), and their five-year-old daughter Lesia. 

Dariia Herasymchuk, an advisor to the President’s Office for children’s rights and rehabilitation, spoke about the family’s tragic fate. 

They were killed when a residential building in Izium on Pershotravneva Street was bombed. 

"I know from eyewitnesses that there were air raids on the night of 8 March; this building was very heavily bombed," Anastasiia, who was in Olena Stolpakova’s class at school, told Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia. 

Later, it was revealed that the couple’s elder daughter, who was eight years old, and the children’s grandmother had been killed in the bombing.  

The house was under fire for a long time, so it was impossible to rescue people from under the rubble.

"They say that they didn’t die immediately; they suffocated from lack of oxygen under the rubble. 

They didn’t deserve this - they were very good people, very bright and kind ones," Anastasiia said. 

Olena had celebrated her 31st birthday in February, and the family lived a full and happy life until the full-scale war began. 

Olena posted her last message on 14 February, St Valentine’s Day. 

At least 44 people were killed when the building was destroyed, most of them in the basement. 

"At the site where the Stolpakovs are buried, there are 445 graves… And that’s not the only burial site in Izium.

The most horrific thing that can happen when settlements are liberated is finding people’s bodies and establishing their identities. Hundreds and thousands of innocent people have been killed by the Russians just because they lived in Ukraine," Herasymchuk commented.

The number of people who were buried in the mass grave has been confirmed by police. 

On the first day of the exhumation in Izium, investigators exhumed 22 murdered civilians and 17 soldiers of the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the same grave.

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