The life of 73-year-old Halyna Huba was taken on December 30, 2022, in the village of Dibrova, Kramatorsk district. Russian occupiers hit her home with a shell.
Halyna was born in Dibrova. She graduated from a trade school and worked as a sales assistant in Lyman, and later as a forewoman on a farm. She knew how to sew and knit, cooked deliciously, baked pies and Easter bread. She also had a beautiful voice. Her husband played the accordion, and she sang.
Halyna worked hard in the garden and cared for livestock.
The full-scale war found her in her native village. She lived near her son’s family and next to the home of her daughter Tetiana, who worked as the head of the local community center.
When the Russian army approached Dibrova, her daughter, along with her husband and son, left the village.
“My son was finishing school with a gold medal and was planning to enroll at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. My mother told us to leave. She stayed behind in the occupation with her son and daughter-in-law. She said she would not abandon the household—especially since the cow had just calved,” Tetiana recalled.
After the village was liberated in October 2022, local authorities called on public-sector workers to return. Halyna’s daughter came back and began organizing the distribution of humanitarian aid. Public buildings had been destroyed, so she received and distributed aid from her own home.
On December 22, 2022, Tetiana recalls, Ukrainian soldiers warned that the occupiers might soon strike the homes of her family.
“They probably noticed constant movement of vehicles and people. We were asked not to spend the night at home for a few days. We packed up and went to stay with relatives,” Tetiana said.
A few days later, Halyna said that was enough—she would sleep at home. That same day, her grandson returned from his studies.
“In the evening my son, exhausted, quickly fell asleep, and I was just lying there. Suddenly I heard cluster munitions. I went outside. Everything was quiet; the village was asleep… I didn’t even hear the sound of impact. I came to my senses under the trees. I looked at our house and saw the curtains swaying—the windows had been blown out. My daughter-in-law was calling from the neighboring house. At the end of the garden lay my wounded brother… Where my mother’s house had stood, there was only a crater. By morning, they dug out her body under a blanket—just as she had fallen asleep…”
“Mom still had so much strength and could have lived a long life… We would be digging potatoes, everyone exhausted, and she would still be full of energy, saying: ‘Children, children, how old am I, and how old are you?’” Tetiana recalled.
Halyna is survived by her son, daughter, and two grandchildren.
At 9:00 a.m. — a nationwide minute of silence. The Donetsk Regional Military Administration and the Memorial platform: those killed by Russia remember the residents of Donetsk Oblast killed by Russians.