Nikita Khrushchev's granddaughter is killed in Moscow

Yulia Khrushcheva, the granddaughter of the late Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, was reportedly killed outside Moscow on June 8, after falling under a passing train at a railway station. 

Police officers confirmed to the press that a woman born in 1940 died on the train tracks outside Moscow on Thursday, without formally releasing the individual’s name. Paramedics later verified that the victim was Yulia Khrushcheva.

“This afternoon at the Minchurinets railway platform, a woman born in 1940 stumbled and fell beneath an oncoming electric train. It has been established that the victim was Yulia Khrushcheva, the granddaughter of the late Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev,” a source told the news agency RIA Novosti.

Yulia Khrushcheva was the daughter of Nikita Khrushchev’s son, Leonid, who served and died as a military pilot in World War II. Yulia’s mother, Lyubov Sizykh, was arrested in 1943, the same year Leonid died, and convicted of espionage. She then spent five years in prison camps and eight years in exile within the USSR. Yulia was raised directly by Nikita Khrushchev’s family, and she grew up calling him “daddy,” according to her memoirs. 

Nikita Khrushchev led the Soviet Union from 1953 until 1964, serving as first secretary of the Communist Party. As leader, Khrushchev instituted so-called de-Stalinization, backed the early Soviet space program, and attempted to carry out liberal reforms within the country. He was removed from power suddenly by his own Communist Party colleagues, which led to the USSR’s 18-year Brezhnev period.