“He Told Me, ‘Lie Here,’ and Then Set the Car on Fire”: The Story of 14-Year-Old Andrii, Who Lost His Family in the Chernihiv Region, Becomes Part of the Museum of Civilian Voices

In 2022, 10-year-old Andrii lost the three people closest to him — his mother, father, and uncle.  As russian troops advanced, the family was trying to leave the village of Sofiivka in the Chernihiv region. An enemy armored personnel carrier deliberately rammed their passenger car. Andrii, who was inside the vehicle, survived by a miracle. russian soldiers pulled the boy from the car and then set the crushed vehicle on fire before his eyes while his relatives were still alive inside. The teenager shared his tragic story with the Museum of Civilian Voices founded by the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.

Before the war, the family lived in Brovary. Trying to escape the fighting, they moved farther away from the capital to the Chernihiv region, hoping to find a safer place there. But the war caught up with them there as well. When civilians were warned that a russian convoy was approaching Sofiivka, Andrii’s uncle Serhii insisted on an urgent evacuation. That journey, however, proved fatal.

To this day, Andrii remembers that terrible day in the smallest detail. The boy knows that  his mother was still alive after the armored personnel carrier struck the car. Had the occupiers not set the wrecked vehicle on fire, she could have been saved.

“One of them pulled me out, laid me down by the side of the road, and started asking questions: whether I had a phone, who my relatives were, what hurt. I said my leg. He told me: ‘Lie here,’ and walked away. Then they shot at the car’s fuel tank, and the car caught fire. My mother was unconscious. Most likely, she had no serious injuries, while my father had severe shrapnel wounds. Very severe ones,” Andrii recalls.

Andrii’s older sister, Tetiana, remembers trying to stay in touch with her family until the very last moment.

“At seven in the morning, I was talking to them on the phone, telling them they needed to find shelter somehow, to get away. Two hours later, I got a call and was told: ‘They’re gone.’ Such a loss happened in an instant. It was incredibly difficult for the mind to comprehend,” Tetiana says.

When the enemy convoy moved on, local villagers ran to the burning car. Among them was a relative who recognized Andrii and took the boy away. Later, Territorial Defense fighters transported him to the Bobrovytsia District Hospital. Andrii was diagnosed with multiple shrapnel wounds and contusions.

After the death of their parents, Tetiana became the legal guardian of her younger brother. Today, they live in Kyiv. Despite everything he has endured, Andrii finds the strength to move forward: he actively plays football and dreams of one day attending a match of his favorite club, Real Madrid.

But the boy’s greatest dream is for the war to end as soon as possible, so that children in Ukraine never again have to lose their parents.

“It is important to tell these stories so that people know what is happening now, that war is a crime,” the boy says.

Watch Andrii’s story here: https://bit.ly/4dzcgSW