Occupying soldiers invaded Sviatoslav’s village of Levkovychi in the northeastern Chernihiv region on the first day of the war. Its residents witnessed enemy tanks, armored personnel vehicles and artillery mounts roll through their community. The residents, who were determined to protect the village, began bravely preparing Molotov cocktails to defend their families and homes. The father of then seven-year-old Sviatoslav was one of them.
A few days later, he was brutally murdered by the Russian military. It was his mother that found his body and she was forced to bury and say goodbye to him herself – while under constant enemy fire.
