26-year-old Anastasiia Buhaienko was killed on March 16, 2022, alongside her younger daughter and husband, during a Russian airstrike on the Drama Theater in Mariupol.
Anastasiia was a resident of Mariupol and graduated from a mechanical and metallurgical technical college. Together with her husband, she was raising two daughters — seven-year-old Valeriia and Karolina, who was 2 years and 7 months old.
"At the age of 9, Nastia was left an orphan. She lived in a children's home. When my son met her, she was 17. They loved each other and lived well. Nastia called me mom, always addressing me with formal respect. She was kind and responsible. Shortly before the war, she was given an apartment. My son and daughter-in-law were furnishing it," recalled the deceased's mother-in-law, Iryna.
When the full-scale war began, Anastasiia moved with her husband and two daughters to his parents' place on Zelinskyi Street. Until March 11, they sheltered in the basement there. But in the morning, a powerful airstrike struck a neighboring building, killing dozens of people. The family decided to seek a safer place and relocated to the Drama Theater. On March 16, when the Russian army bombed it, Anastasiia was in a room on the second floor with her children.
"The third floor collapsed onto the second. I was shouting, climbing through those ruins. A concrete slab hung over me. I was screaming. I saw the red down jacket of my older granddaughter. She and a neighboring girl were standing by the window, which saved them. My daughter-in-law and younger granddaughter were killed," recalled her mother-in-law, Iryna. Her son Oleksandr, Anastasiia's husband, was killed by shrapnel at the field kitchen.
After the airstrike, relatives were unable to find the bodies of Anastasiia and Karolina. The deceased is survived by her older daughter, Valeriia.
At 9:00 AM — the national minute of silence. The Donetsk Regional Military Administration and the "Memorial: Killed by Russia" platform remember the residents of Donetsk Oblast killed by the Russians.