Man returns from shops to find wife and baby killed by Russian missile

Yuriy Glodan had just stepped out of his Odesa apartment to get something from the shops when the devastating explosion ripped through his family’s home, the BBC reports.

Mr Glodan raced back to his apartment where he found the body of his wife, Valeria, and her mother.

The body of his baby daughter, Kira, was discovered later.

The instant deaths of three generations in one strike has outraged Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioning Kira in an emotional nightly address.

“How did she threaten Russia? It seems that killing children is just a new national idea of the Russian Federation,” Mr Zelenskyy said.

Heartbroken, Mr Glodan returned to his unit on Sunday to gather what was left of his family’s belongings.

“If I leave things in the flat, it will become garbage and people will throw it away,” he told the BBC. “I want to keep it for my memories.”

Mr Glodan said his wife was the love of his life.

“She could find joy in everything. Odesa was her favourite city. She worked in PR and she could communicate with a lot of people, understand them. I admired what a good writer she was,” he said.

“She was a great mother, friend, with all the best qualities. It will be impossible for me to find somebody else like Valeria. She was perfect. Such a person could be given to you only once in a life and it’s a gift from God.”

Mr Glodan said he was struggling to accept his new reality after being so happy after the birth of his daughter.

“It’s very hard for me to realise now that my daughter and wife are no longer here. 

“All my world was destroyed yesterday by a Russian missile.”

Mr Glodan said he wanted to spread the message across the world about what Russia was doing.

“What is happening is a grief for my family, for our city, for Ukraine, it’s a grief for the whole civilisation. I hope our story helps to stop this war.”