For months after a Russian missile strike on the center of the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsya killed Roman Oleksiv's mother and left the 7-year-old boy with massive burns, he would recount the horrific experience to his father every morning.
"He would get up around 5 a.m. and start telling stories about what happened: how they got there, how the rocket hit, how he got out," Yaroslav Oleksiv said of his son, who had traveled to Vinnytsya from their home in Lviv with his mother to visit his grandparents.
They had gone to a medical clinic for a checkup when a Russian warship in the Black Sea fired three Kalibr cruise missiles into the heart of the west-central city, far from the front line in Russia's war on Ukraine, on July 14, 2022.
"Boom -- I was thrown against the wall. I stood up and saw that everything was on fire. It was all black…. I could only see light at the exit, and I moved forward, jumping around [the rubble]. I couldn't feel my left arm or my right leg," Roman recalled in September 2023, wearing protective coverings on his face and hands 14 months after the attack. "I walked a little, crawled a little, sat down for a little, and I got to the exit."
Talking about it helps, and Roman speaks of the attack "calmly," Yaroslav told RFE/RL.
"The same goes for talking about [Roman's] mom. If we constantly talk about Mom, we calmly remember, we remember the good moments we had…. For him, it's like a ray of warmth and memories of his mom," Yaroslav said. "It's important to talk about it. You can't just be silent. We frequently go to Mom's cemetery, practically every other day. He comes, lights a candle, we sit for a while and go home. That is our life."
Roman's mother, Halyna, 29, was one of 27 people killed in the attack on Vinnytsya -- one of countless strikes Ukraine says make a mockery of Moscow's claim that it does not target civilians in the war, now in its fourth year since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
There were three children among the dead. One of them was Liza Dmitriyeva , a 4-year-old girl with Down syndrome whose mother was taking her to a speech therapy appointment when the missiles hit.
Liza's death drew attention to the growing number of children being killed or wounded in Russia's war on Ukraine, many of them in the frequent air strikes on cities across Ukraine, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east, where a 13-year-old boy was among the dead in an attack six days later.
On April 4 of this year, nine children were among the 20 people killed in a Russian air strike that hit a playground and a restaurant hosting a birthday party in the city of Kryvih Rih.
'Deep Scars'
In a March report, the UN Human Rights Office said it had verified that 669 children were killed and 1,833 injured between the start of the full-scale invasion and the end of 2024, "many as a result of the extensive use of explosive weapons in populated areas." It said that "the actual numbers are likely much higher."
In addition, it said: "As of December 2024, an estimated 737,000 children had been internally displaced by the hostilities. A further 1.7 million were refugees, many of them separated from a parent, usually their father."
"The ongoing hostilities and occupation of parts of Ukraine by the Russian Federation have caused large-scale human rights violations and inflicted unimaginable suffering on millions of children," UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said. "Their rights have been undermined in every aspect of life, leaving deep scars, both physical and psychosocial."
The Ukrainian Prosecutor-General's Office has issued similar numbers, saying at least 630 children had been killed and 1,960 wounded as a result of Russia's armed aggression as of May 26. Another 2,245 children are officially registered as missing.
As of the third anniversary of the war on February 24, 2025, Moscow had deported some 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russia, according to the Ukrainian government, but activists say the true number may be higher. Kyiv has managed to bring 1,300 Ukrainian children back to their country.
In March 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague issued an arrest warrant for Putin, alleging he was responsible for war crimes: the unlawful deportation and transfer of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to Russia. The ICC also issued a warrant for Putin's children's rights commission, Maria Lvova-Belova.
Some countries in the former Soviet bloc and elsewhere mark June 1 as Children's Day. On May 30, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree shifting the celebration in Ukraine to November 20, which the UN labels World Children's Day -- the date on which the UN General Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.
'He Taught Me A Lot'
Footage from shortly after the attack Roman survived shows a man carrying him through the streets in Vinnytsya. After three days in intensive care at a hospital there, he was transported to Lviv, then to Rzeszow, Poland, and then by plane to Dresden, Germany, where he spent over a year in treatment.
With third-degree burns covering his head, face, arms, and legs, as well as burns in his respiratory tract, Roman was put into an induced coma and the first few weeks were touch and go, Yaroslav said: "No one could guarantee that he'd survive."
Roman, now 10 years old, wore a compression mask over his face for two years. After more than 30 operations, most of them skin grafts, he will be undergo regular surgeries until he is 18, in part because burn scars do not grow in unison with healthy skin.
In the meantime, Roman juggles school and friends with a busy schedule of physical therapy sessions, swimming lessons, and "both dance and music school," said Yaroslav, who is a composer, accordionist, and teacher.
Roman -- also known by the diminutive, Romchyk -- has in some cases been more like a teacher, peer, and friend to his father.
"Oh, he taught me a lot. He always says not to give up. This is his signature phrase," Yaroslav said. "He sometimes says such adult things…. At first, I perceived him as a child, but now I see him as a true friend and [a provider of] support."
Halyna was also an accordionist and a teacher, and Roman plays the instrument as well. In March, he won first prize at Intersvitiaz Accomusic 2025, an accordion competition that took place in Lutsk, Ukraine.
"Physically, you have to put in effort on the accordion and you have to think the same way, because your right hand has to think what to play, and at the same time you pull so that there is sound, so that the air flows," Roman told RFE/RL.
"Everything seems to be fine with my left side. I just had a fracture and it healed, they put pins in there and a lot of other things," he said. "On the right side it is a little worse, because I can't lift my foot. And with my right hand, my fingers are the same, they can't move very much. That is, I don't have that much strength."
Playing the accordion is not the only way Roman is following in his parents' footsteps: At a recent visit to the physical therapist, he wore his late mother's sneakers -- size 38.
"Mom's shoes," he said. "I've grown up and now they're mine."
