Seriously injured Ukrainian woman breastfeeds baby daughter after shielding her from blast
Safe in her mother’s arms: Seriously injured Ukrainian woman, 27, breastfeeds her baby daughter in hospital after shielding the six-week-old when a Russian missile blasted broken glass through their Kyiv home
Ukrainian mother was left seriously wounded after missile strike hit Kyiv home27-year-old used her own body to shield her baby from the blast and shrapnelOlga had woken up to feed her six-week-old baby when the Russian missile hit
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A Ukrainian mother breastfeeding her tiny baby in hospital has become a new symbol of defiance in Ukraine after she was seriously injured shielding her daughter from a Russian missile attack.
The 27-year-old, named only as Olga, was left with cuts and bruises all over her face and body after glass from a huge missile attack sent broken glass flying through her home in Kyiv.
Incredibly, she had only just picked up her six-week-old daughter and covered her with a blanket to feed her when the blast shook the building in the middle of the night. Her protective embrace likely saved the infant’s life.
Now the mother and daughter are recovering in hospital.
Tender images of the youngster feeding have been widely shared in Ukraine where Olga’s actions have been seized upon as an example of the country’s defiance in the face of Putin’s invasion.
Olga recalled the shock as she saw blood covering her child after the blast shattered glass across the room.
‘I was wounded in the head, and blood started flowing. And it all flowed on the baby,’ said Olga, sitting on a bed at the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital where she was being treated.
A 27-year-old Ukrainian woman has been seriously wounded after using her own body as a barrier to protect her newborn baby from the blast of an incoming missile strike
‘I couldn’t understand, I thought it was her blood.’
Photographs of Olga, her head bandaged and her upper body covered in cuts as she holds her baby, Victoria, have featured widely on social media, in an image encapsulating the heavy toll being paid by civilians in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
As Victoria’s father Dmytro took the girl, Olga said she began screaming that her daughter had been cut.
‘Olga, it’s your blood, it’s not hers,’ she recalls Dmytro responding.
Olga finds the energy to feed her six-week-old baby daughter as she lays seriously wounded in hospital
Ukrainian authorities say at least 60 civilians have been killed in Kyiv since Russia launched what it calls a ‘special military operation’ on Feb. 24, several in missile strikes on residential buildings.
Olga, who did not share her family name, said she had woken up to feed the 6 week-old baby and had already covered her with a blanket to keep her warm when the missile strike occurred.
‘And that’s what kept the baby alive. I just got her covered in time. And then Dmytro jumped up and covered us, too.’
Olga is being treated for multiple cuts to the head and body but the baby was unharmed apart from a scratch and some bruises
Olga is being treated for multiple cuts to the head and body but the baby was unharmed apart from a scratch and some bruises.
‘There’s nothing left for us to do but to stay positive, just to believe that it was the worst, the most horrible thing that could have happened in our lives,’ Dmytro, who was woken by the sound of shattering glass, added. (Reporting by Olga Vyshnevska and Nastasa Bansagi; writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by Alexander Smith)
