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A 23-year-old Ukrainian woman who was expecting her first child after suffering several miscarriages was among 21 people killed when a Russian airstrike hit her hospital ward early Tuesday morning, her friends said.
Diana Koshyk, who was seven months pregnant, had been moved to a maternity hospital in Kamianske so doctors could oversee the high risk pregnancy, but the safe haven was quickly transformed into a warzone after a Russian missile hit the ward, CNN reported.
“She loved children very much and was eagerly awaiting her own … and now Russia cut their thread of life,” longtime friend Anna Bunich told the outlet.
Bunich described Koshyk as a “ray of sunshine,” and fellow friend Yana Belobrova noted that starting a family was a long-time dream of Koshyk and her husband.
“She and her husband wanted a child, but she had miscarriages … and then life smiled at her and she got pregnant, and she was already seven months, and then this happened,” the grieving friend said.
Haunting images from inside the hospital show windows shattered and beds broken from the impact of the missile blast.
The strike killed two other people inside the maternity ward and left another 22 injured — including patients, doctors, nurses and midwives, according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky joined the nation in mourning Koshyk and the other victims, calling for an end to Russian attacks against civilians.
“The Russians could not have been unaware that they were targeting civilians in that facility,” Zelensky said in a statement.
“And this was done after a completely clear position was voiced by the United States – a position supported by the world – that Russia must end this war and move to diplomacy,” he added.
The attack was part of the deadliest assault on civilians in recent weeks after Russia fired more than 300 drones and seven missiles overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
Along with the deaths at the maternity ward, a Russian strike at a prison in the Zaporizhzhia region killed 17 inmates, with Ukrainian officials slamming both attacks as a war crime under international conventions.
Tuesday’s strike is notably not the first time Russia bombed a Ukrainian maternity ward.
Last month, a Russian drone hit a hospital in Odessa.
Moscow has continued to ramp up its deadly attacks on civilians across Ukraine despite President Trump’s call for the war to end by September or else Russia would be hit with harsh secondary tariffs by the US.
Seeing no cooperation from Russia, Trump announced Monday that he was moving up his deadline to just “10 to 12 days,” indicating that his patience with the Kremlin has run out.
English (US)