Before the start of the Russian War in Ukraine, Kira Obedinsky was a happy, beloved 12-year-old girl. Now orphaned, injured and alone in a Russian-controlled hospital in eastern Ukraine, she has become an unwilling pawn in the Moscow information war. Obedinsky’s mother died when he was a baby. The father of Yevhen Obedinsky, a former leader of Ukraine’s national water polo team, was shot and killed as Russian forces entered the southeastern city of Mariupol on March 17. Days later, Kira and her father’s girlfriend tried to leave town on foot next door to neighbors. But after being injured in a landmine explosion, Kira was taken to a hospital in the Donetsk region, which is controlled by Moscow-backed separatists. Oleksander Obedinsky with his granddaughter Kira, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. She is afraid he will never see her again. (Courtesy of Oleksander Obedinsky) Now Kira’s grandfather, Oleksander, is afraid he will never see her again. He said a separatist government official in Donetsk had called and invited him to travel there to claim it, which was impossible due to the war. He says he spoke to the hospital and was told that Kira would eventually be sent to an orphanage in Russia. She was stripped of her documents, he said, and told Kira that news would be provided to Russia. The Russian government says it has helped at least 60,000 Ukrainians move safely across the Russian border. The Ukrainian government said about 40,000 had been transferred against their will, describing it as abduction and forced deportation. Russian media, which have repeatedly downplayed the brutality of the conflict in Ukraine, showed videos of Kira talking happily about how she is sometimes allowed to call her grandfather. This is “proof” that he was not abducted, according to a Russian TV presenter, who called the allegation another “Ukrainian fake”. Oleksander, meanwhile, has received an audio message from Kira telling him not to cry. But the young girl who lost her family, her freedom and her home in the Russian war, can not stop her tears. “I have not seen you for so long,” he says. “I want to cry.” Kira in Mariupol, before the war. (Courtesy of Oleksander Obedinsky)
