9-Year-Old Ukrainian Girl Shot Dead By Russian Saboteurs While Fleeing Kyiv With Parents

A young girl in her last year of primary school was gunned down alongside her parents while their family tried to flee Kyiv by car. Her death adds to the rising toll of at least 14 Ukrainian children slain during the Russian invasion, which began on Feb 24, according to local authorities.

The Daily Beast reported that a Russian sabotage and reconnaissance group was responsible for the attack on a street in the northwest of the capital, which left both Polina’s brother and sister in intensive care units of separate children’s hospitals.

In a separate incident on Friday, a seven-year-old girl named Alisa Hlans was among the six dead following an attack on a kindergarten in Okhtyrka, an hour's drive from Ukraine's northeast border, on the second day of the Russian invasion.

Alisa was set to turn 8 in May but succumbed to her fatal injuries on Saturday, according to Prosecutor General Irina Venediktova. Another young boy lost his life to a blast that started fires in several flats in the small town of Chuhuiv on the second day of Russia's invasion.

Accordingly, at least 10 members of Ukraine's ethnic Greek community died when the villages of Sartana on the outskirts of Mariupol and Buhas, some 65 kilometers to the north, came under fire in the south.

News of the tragedy drew massive backlash from the Greek community, prompting the foreign minister to make a strong protest to the Russian ambassador. On Saturday, Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis denounced the airstrikes that landed close to the port city of Mariupol.

Meanwhile, the Russian embassy in Athens insists that Russia's "special military operations" only targeted military units and infrastructure, according to the BBC.

Ukrainian officials said Saturday that about 116 children have been injured, where 14 have died during the invasion. By Sunday, the Ukrainian human rights commissioner noted the number of civilian victims rose to 210.

As for the many families who were trapped within the capital, some ended up with hundreds of residents in the basement of a Kyiv school after they fled a residential building on Friday when it was hit by a Russian missile.

Other residents banded together in train stations as Russian troops pushed further into the country on Saturday.