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Three days after a Ukrainian drone crashed on a beach at a Russian Black Sea resort, here’s what we know about the victims

Source: Meduza

On August 3, a Ukrainian drone came down and exploded on a beach in the village of Arkhipo-Osipovka, part of Gelendzhik. At the time of the drone attack, people were on the beach and in the water and were not evacuated. Seven people were killed, including four children, and 40 people were injured. Local residents and tourists complained that they hadn’t heard any sirens, even though the village has a warning system. Not much is known about the dead and injured three days later. Meduza reports on who was killed by the drone.

A five-year-old girl from the settlement of Maisky, part of the city of Shakhty in Russia’s Rostov region, was among those killed on the beach in the village of Arkhipo-Osipovka, the Russian Telegram news channel Ostorozhno Novosti reported. The girl, Sonya, had turned five in June and was on the beach with her mother, Yekaterina, when the drone strike hit. Yekaterina is in moderate condition after undergoing eye surgery and sustaining a leg wound. Sonya suffered serious injuries in the attack and died shortly afterward in the hospital. Yekaterina is expected to remain hospitalized in Gelendzhik for at least a week.

Journalists reported that Yekaterina is raising five children on her own. Sonya is survived by two older brothers, a younger brother who attended the same preschool group as her, and an older sister. Yekaterina had traveled to Arkhipo-Osipovka with Sonya alone.

Sonya’s godparents, Alexei and Oksana, were vacationing with them along with their younger son, Maxim, who was also killed. Maxim’s parents remain in serious condition in the hospital and have not been told that their son died. Oksana sustained shrapnel wounds to her leg; it is unknown what injuries Alexei suffered. The couple also has an older son.

“Sonya really wanted to go to the sea. Her preschool teacher [at the kindergarten] said she used to tell her, “Can you imagine, we’re going to the sea, my mom is taking me!” They went, and this terrible thing happened. The two families are godparents to each other’s children,” Yulia, a Maisky resident whose son attends the same kindergarten as Sonya, told journalists. After the tragedy, she launched a fundraiser to help the two families, raising more than 300,000 rubles within a day, an amount split evenly between them.

Sonya’s funeral took place on August 6 in Shakhty and drew more than 50 mourners, including relatives, family friends, and residents of the settlement.

A nurse named Nadezhda, from the city of Lomonosov, part of St. Petersburg, was also killed in the drone attack, her relatives said on social media. She worked with children, giving them therapeutic massage, and had come to Gelendzhik on vacation. Nadezhda died in the hospital on the morning of August 4.

Vera, 11, from Armavir in Krasnodar Krai, was injured in the attack and is being treated at a hospital in Gelendzhik. She had been vacationing on the beach in Arkhipo-Osipovka with her parents and brothers when the strike hit; her mother said she shielded her younger son with her own body during the attack. Vera was thrown toward the sea and lost consciousness, sustaining shrapnel wounds. She was transferred from the hospital in Arkhipo-Osipovka to one in Gelendzhik, where doctors put her into a medically induced coma, placed her on a ventilator, and operated to remove shrapnel from her chest. Doctors are now preparing to transport her to Moscow.