The killing of Liza Dmitrieva, who had Down syndrome, as she was pushed in a wheelchair through a crowded square was reported around the world, becoming a poignant symbol of the heavy political cost of Russia’s invasion. Wearing a wreath of white flowers, Lisa was laid to rest on Sunday as an Orthodox priest broke down in tears and told weeping relatives that “evil cannot win”. Lisa’s grandmother, Larisa Dmitrieva, stroked the child as he lay in an open coffin with teddy bears in Vinnytsia’s 18th-century Transfiguration Cathedral. “Look my flower! Look how many people came to you,” said Larissa. Lisa’s father, Artem Dmitriev, stood silently, tears streaming down his face. Relatives and friends pay their respects to four-year-old Lisa in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, on Sunday. Photo: Efrem Lukatsky/AP The funeral was held as footage emerged of the girl’s badly injured mother, Iryna, visibly distraught and speaking to a local TV channel after regaining consciousness. Lying in a hospital bed, with a video of her daughter visible on her phone, she told reporters: “People don’t care. He sees what is happening but does not protect us. How many times have we asked to close the sky? And the world is just watching how Ukraine is being murdered. Our children are being murdered, our soldiers and our people. “Protect us from this tyrant,” she said, referring to Vladimir Putin, “because after us he will go further and destroy everything.” Twenty-two other people were killed in the attack, while one person is missing. As Lisa was buried, Russian missiles and rockets continued to pound Ukrainian towns and cities amid warnings that a renewed Moscow offensive could target the region around northeastern Kharkiv – where Russian troops had partially withdrawn – as well as the eastern Donetsk region, which is seen as the Kremlin’s main focus. During a visit to the front lines this weekend, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu ordered troops to “further intensify unit actions in all operational areas.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged his people not to fall for Russia’s attempts to scare them with warnings of horrific missile attacks to come, which he said are aimed at dividing Ukrainian society. “It is clear that no Russian missile or artillery will be able to break our unity or lead us away from our path to a democratic, independent Ukraine,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation on Saturday. “And it is also clear that the unity of Ukraine cannot be broken by lies or intimidation, forgeries or conspiracy theories.” Ukrainian officials reported an increase in Russian airstrikes, including missiles fired by strategic bombers over the Caspian Sea. “It’s not just air and sea missile strikes,” said Vadym Skibitskyi, a spokesman for Ukrainian military intelligence. “We can see shelling all over the contact line, all over the front line. There is active use of tactical aviation and attack helicopters. Clearly, preparations are underway for the next stage of the attack.” The Ukrainian military said Russia appeared to be regrouping units for an attack on Sloviansk, a symbolically important Ukrainian-held city in the eastern Donetsk region. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said on Sunday that Russia was strengthening its defense positions in all areas it held in southern Ukraine following pressure from Ukrainian forces and pledges by Ukrainian leaders to expel Russia. Ukraine says at least 40 people have been killed by Russian shelling of urban areas over the past three days as the war launched by Putin on February 24 intensifies. Rockets hit the northeastern city of Chuhuiv in Kharkiv region on Friday night, killing three people, including a 70-year-old woman, and injuring three others, regional governor Oleh Synehubov said. “Three people died – why? For what reason? Because Putin went crazy?’ said Raisa Shapoval, 83, a distraught resident sitting in the rubble of her home. In the south, more than 50 Russian Grad rockets hit the town of Nikopol on the Dnipro River, killing two people in the rubble, Governor Valentyn Reznichenko said. On Sunday, more Russian missiles hit industrial facilities in the strategic southern city of Mykolaiv, a key shipbuilding center at the mouth of the Southern Bug River. There were no immediate reports of casualties. Mykolaiv has come under regular Russian missile strikes in recent weeks as Moscow has sought to soften Ukrainian defenses, aiming to cut off Ukraine’s entire Black Sea coast to the Romanian border. Early in the campaign, Ukrainian forces repulsed Russian attempts to capture Mykolaiv. Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Major General Igor Konashenkov said Russian missiles destroyed a cache of Harpoon anti-ship missiles delivered to Ukraine by NATO allies, a claim that could not be independently confirmed. The defense ministry also said its aircraft shot down a Ukrainian MI-17 helicopter near the eastern city of Sloviansk and an SU-25 jet in the Kharkiv region. Subscribe to First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every morning at 7am. BST Moscow, which calls the invasion a “special military operation” to demilitarize its neighbor and root out nationalists, says it is using high-precision weapons to degrade Ukraine’s military infrastructure and protect its own security. Russia has repeatedly denied targeting civilians. Kyiv and the West say the conflict is an unprovoked attempt to retake a country freed from Moscow’s rule with the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. The Associated Press contributed to this report
