A Family Tree is Left Without Roots and Leaves. The story of a family from Lyman, which lost four people due to Russian aggression

In May 2022, when Russian troops were advancing on the city of Lyman in the Donetsk region, their shelling destroyed the happy life of the Kriachko-Pelykh family. Enemy soldiers hit the basement where 44-year-old Nataliia Pelykh and her 8-year-old daughter Sofiia were hiding. 41-year-old Dmytro Kriachko, Nataliia’s husband and Sofiia’s father, rushed to the hospital in Kramatorsk to save his dearest. But they did not manage to survive. After 49 days of longing for his family, he committed suicide. This was another painful blow for his father Oleksii, whose heart could not withstand the grief – and he died shortly after his son’s suicide. The story of the tragedy of this family is told by Oleksii’s granddaughter Alina and her grandmother Svitlana.

Family is the Greatest Treasure

Oleksii and Svitlana Kriachko met in 1976. He was from Ilovaisk, she was from Lyman, and both studied in Bakhmut. In 1977, the couple had a son, Roman, and three years later, Dmytro. The family lived in Lyman. Svitlana worked as a cashier, and Oleksii was a railway operator. They always tried to spend their free time together.

Their sons Roman and Dmytro grew up with different personalities, the older one was a brawler, the younger one was quiet and calm. When both started their own families, they moved out of their parents’ house, but they all lived nearby. On weekends or holidays, they gathered at their parents’ place.

“Our family always tried to be positive. Although grandfather Oleksii used to be strict, he had a wonderful sense of humor. Grandma Svitlana was gentle and kind, always wanted to feed everyone deliciously. For them, family was the main value,” says granddaughter Alina Kriachko, daughter of the couple’s eldest son.

The couple's youngest son, Dmytro, studied to become a mason and driver. They said about him that he had golden hands. He built a house by himself, set up a swing nearby and planted many trees. It was the house in which he lived together with Nataliia Pelykh.

This was Dmytro’s third relationship; he had a daughter from the previous one, whom he also helped. Nataliia had a child too. Relatives recall that their house was always in perfect order. Nataliia did household chores between shifts at a drug dispensary in Slovyansk, where she was from. Dmytro, a jack of all trades, could easily do everything necessary in and around the house.

In 2012, Nataliia and Dmytro found out that they were expecting a child. The baby was very welcome, but Nataliia’s pregnancy was difficult, doctors gave disappointing forecasts.

The long-awaited Sofiia was born on May 30, 2013. The girl had vision problems and started wearing glasses early. She grew up as a talented child. She drew well and dreamed of becoming an artist. She loved to study English, she was also engaged in mathematics.

“She would come home from school and say, ‘Grandma, I want to get a 12 (the highest mark at Ukrainian schools, equivalent to A with a distinction). However, her grandparents were used to an ‘excellent/good/bad’ system applicable to when they were schoolchildren. Mom did a lot of exercise with Sofiia, and on weekends or when Nataliia was at work, Sofiia came to her grandfather and me,” says the girl’s grandmother, Svitlana.

They Never Thought That The Enemy Would Attack Civilians

In 2014, when the Russian military launched an armed aggression against Ukraine, several battles took place in Lyman in Donetsk region. The grandmother and granddaughter Alina recall how enemy vehicles drove through the city, explosions were heard. But soon the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated Lyman from Russian militants, and the situation there became relatively calm.

After February 24, 2022, when the full-scale offensive of Russian troops began, the family believed that the worst would pass them by. They never thought that the enemy would attack civilians, says Alina.

However, the situation around the city worsened more and more, and the shelling intensified. Svitlana Kriachko recalls that Dmytro asked his wife and daughter to evacuate. He even tried to sell the cottage and the car in order to give them the money and send them out of Lyman. However, Nataliia and Sofiia refused to leave. They loved their home very much.

“He seemed to feel something... But the girls said they were staying – that was their decision. Sofiia was surprisingly calm, she was not afraid of shelling,” says Svitlana. She and her husband Oleksii also did not want to leave the city.

Offensive actions of Russian troops near Lyman intensified in May 2022. The enemy launched an assault, took control of a part of the city, and the fighting lasted for several days. It was scary.

Sofiia, who loved to draw and whose drawings were always bright, began to color everything in gray and black colors.

On May 23, 2022, Dmytro Kriachko went to visit his brother Roman, who lived nearby. While he was gone, the shelling began. An enemy shell flew into the basement, where Nataliia and her daughter managed to hide.

“My mother raised her head and said to uncle Dmytro: ‘Look, it seems that something is on fire in your house...” The garage caught fire, the car exploded, and the projectile flew straight into the basement, it was bombarded,” Alina recalls.

Svitlana Kriachko now thinks: “Perhaps if they were in a hall of the house, they would not have been hurt...”

Relatives rushed to help and pulled out the injured Nataliia and Sofiia from under the rubble. Dmytro took the neighbor’s car. He took his wife and daughter to the hospital. He also came under fire on the way. The military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine helped him to get to the Kramatorsk medical facility.

Hour after hour passed, and the relatives did not know whether Dmytro passed the checkpoint or reached the hospital. There were heavy shellings. Alina published a post on social networks, which was quickly responded to by those who cared and reported that Sofiia and her mother were in the hospital. They could not share anything about the condition of the sister, but they told about the aunt that she was “in a very difficult condition.” Alina planned to go to the hospital the next day. However, as it turned out later, there was no one to visit anymore.

Meanwhile, Dmytro Kriachko stayed at the hospital, where he found out that his 8-year-old daughter Sofiia did not survive. He wanted to take her body in his arms and carry it on foot to Lyman to bury her there. But he was not allowed to do so.

The husband did not wait for the news about his wife and in a state of shock went to Lyman, where he told his parents about Sofiia’s death. The next day it became known about Nataliia’s death. Nataliia’s brother helped to bury the killed in Sloviansk.

Two More Losses

Because of those events, Svitlana and Oleksii started to feel worse, and Dmytro often couldn’t sleep. He left his parents’ house, where he moved after the tragedy, and sat in the yard near his broken house at night...

“He didn’t tell my father and me this, but he told his mother-in-law that he wasn’t able to live with this loss, he didn’t know how he could continue to... He loved his wife and daughter so much that he couldn’t live without them,” says Dmytro’s mother.

In the summer, she and his father wanted to occupy their son with anything; they offered to buy him a car, and gave him money for it. However, he left them at the parents’ house and returned to his broken apartment.

On July 10, 2022, Oleksii went there to see his son. He found him dead in the children’s room of the broken house. Dmytro committed suicide after 49 days of longing for his relatives.

Mother Svitlana could not believe it: “I said – how, where did he go?... But he left us, left forever.”

Dmytro was buried in Lyman, and soon the grave of his father Oleksii appeared near him. Oleksii’s health worsened significantly after the death of his son. The man already had a weak heart and kidney problems, and later became paralyzed. Due to the occupation and constant shelling, they could not take Oleksii out of the city. On October 11, 2022, a few days after the liberation of the city by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Oleksii died at home. He was over 70 years old.

“I often remember my grandfather, his jokes. He once said that he really wanted to attend my wedding... I still can’t imagine that neither he, nor sister Sofiia, nor uncle Dmytro are there. That I will never see them again... It is very difficult for me to survive this, now I am trying to be calmer, not to cry and to calm my grandmother,” says Alina Kriachko.

Currently, the girl lives in Kharkiv, where she studies. Her grandmother remains in her native Lyman. In her house, where she lived with her husband Oleksii and where their son, daughter-in-law and granddaughter often came.

“But now they are all gone...” says Svitlana Kryachko.

The text was prepared by the platform Memorial, which tells the stories of civilians killed by Russia and fallen Ukrainian soldiers, exclusively for ZN.UA. To report data on Ukraine’s losses, fill out the following forms: for fallen military and civilian victims.