In the photograph, Anna Haidarzhy and her 4-month-old son, Tymofii, are barely visible under the bloodstained blanket. They lie in the rubble, at the feet of rescue workers in black and fluorescent uniforms. Just two arms, one from the mother, 31, one from her son, can be seen sticking out of the blanket.
“It looked like they were saying goodbye,” one of the rescuers, Serhii Mudrenko, said of the image.
Their bodies were found in the smoking ruins of an apartment block hit in a Russian drone attack in March in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa that killed 12 people. The photograph, taken by Ukraine’s state emergency services, has circulated widely in Ukraine — and has been held up as a tragic symbol of the terrible toll exacted on civilians by Russia’s war.
Throughout the search, Serhii Haidarzhy, 32, Anna’s husband and Tymofii’s father, had stayed with the rescuers as they combed the debris. He had survived the strike with the couple’s 2-year-old daughter, Lizi, and was holding out for a miracle.
“I was hoping that Anichka would survive under the rubble,” Mr. Haidarzhy said, using her nickname.
The Haidarzhys had been married for more than three years. Friends and family said they were inseparable and acted like young lovers. He often brought his wife flowers, they said. He listed her number as “My love” on his cellphone. And when they could, the couple went on dates to enjoy sunsets along a nearby estuary.
“We savored every moment,” he said. “We were living life to the fullest.”
Serhii Haidarzhy, who was in his daughter’s room when the apartment was hit, said he had to grapple with the often unbearable questions that come with grief, like why the strike killed his wife and not him.
