Kyiv bids farewell to 17-year-old Danylo and his parents, victims of Russian attack

Kyiv has said goodbye to three members of the same family who were killed in a massive Russian attack on the capital on the night of 23-24 April – 17-year-old Danylo Khudei and his parents, Viktoriia and Oleh.

Source: Suspilne

Details: Hundreds of people gathered for the ceremony at the Baikove Cemetery crematorium, Suspilne reported.

The family lived in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district, on the ground floor of an apartment building that was hit by a Russian missile.

Danylo had a younger sister, Yana, who survived and is in hospital, and an older sister.

"Yana is now in hospital; the best doctors are taking care of her," Andrii, a friend of the family, said. "She is conscious, but she has a broken leg, the ligaments in her other leg are torn, and one of her ribs is broken. She is now in a stable condition.

She really wanted to come yesterday. She even started getting up despite the pain, forcing herself. She actually got up yesterday. The doctors told her not to and would not let her go."

Andrii, who lives next door to the apartment building that was destroyed by the Russian missile, admits that he too was injured in the attack. He remembers the deceased family with great fondness.

"They were an incredible family. They were the sort of people you could just drop in on without calling ahead; they’d be happy to see you. Uncle Oleh always used to say: ‘If you need anything, just let me know and I'll be right there.’ Danylo also used to help out a lot when I was feeling unwell. He’d go and buy medicine and bring it to me," the family friend says.

Danylo's teachers and fellow students came to pay their last respects to him and Viktoriia and Oleh. Danylo had been a student at the Kyiv Aviation Vocational College, majoring in Aerospace Engineering. Danylo's friend Oleksandr says he wanted to become an aircraft electrician and repair the Antonov An-225 Mriya.

Friends say the 17-year-old enjoyed sport and was passionate about aviation.

According to Danylo’s friends, his father was a military man: he began serving as a tank crew member in 2022, but was later injured and underwent rehabilitation. He had returned home two weeks before the tragedy, said Dmytro Shevchenko, Danylo's group supervisor and deputy head of the college.

What we know about the Russian attack on the night of 23-24 April

On the night of 23-24 April, Russia launched 215 missiles and drones of various types on Ukraine. Most of them were used to attack Kyiv, where an entire neighbourhood was devastated.

Rescue workers completed the search and rescue operations on the morning of 25 April. Nearly 90 people were injured in the attack, and 12 people were then reported killed.

A Russian missile took the lives of brother and sister Nikita, 21, and Sofiia, 19. They were the children of Yaroslav Kozlov, a neurologist at the University Clinic at Kyiv National University.

The death toll from the attack on the capital later rose to 13. On 28 April, Tymur Tkachenko, Head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, reported that a 45-year-old man had died in hospital from burns. He is survived by a young daughter and a 6-year-old grandson.

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