In her desperate search for answers over her son Valentin’s death, Elena even turned to Vladimir Putin.

She wrote to the Russian president demanding an explanation as to why an 18-year-old conscript was involved in combat.

Throughout the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin promised that conscripts wouldn’t be sent to war. But in Valentin’s case, the war came to him.

He had been deployed to the Kursk region as part of his military service and stationed on the border.

But it was there that Ukrainian forces launched their cross-border incursion in August and one month after it began, Valentin was killed after receiving a shrapnel wound to the head.

“It should be specially trained people there, not children,” Elena says.

“They were taken from home, from a mother’s nest, and brought to some unknown place, where there is shooting.

“What kind of warrior is he? He’s not a warrior.”

Like other fallen soldiers, Russia views Valentin as a hero, but that’s no comfort to Elena. All she has are questions, which she wasn’t afraid to put to Mr Putin directly.

“The most important question was: ‘What were our children doing there?’ But I didn’t get any response,” she says.

“At that moment I just wanted to take the whole world and turn it upside down.

“Whoever says they are obligated for military service, what do they owe? What did my son take from the Motherland to pay a debt with his life?”

Read more:
Russian oligarchs with links to Kremlin face UK ban
Zelenskyy on why he would give up presidency
Fact-checking Trump’s claims on Zelenskyy and Ukraine

Valentin was a few weeks short of his 19th birthday when he died, and nearly a year into his military service. Elena didn’t want him to sign on so soon – head boy at school, he could have deferred conscription until after further study – but she says he was excited to serve and insisted.

Pictures of him in his parade uniform are everywhere in her apartment in Rybinsk, a town 160 miles northeast of Moscow. His blue beret is perched on a shelf. And Elena still hopes that one day he’ll walk through the door.

“I still wait for him to come back home, even though I saw his body. I still can’t believe it,” she says, tears running down her face.

“Sometimes I sit and think who my grandchildren could have been. It’s impossible to live like this. It’s not life.”

Russia doesn’t publish its casualty figures but the UK estimates that more than 750,000 Russian troops have either been killed or wounded in the three years since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion began.

Valentin is buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Rybinsk – a 20-minute bus ride for Elena. There are dozens and dozens of military graves there, each one marked with flags. The grave next to Valentin is for a serviceman killed on the same day as him.

It’s rare for anyone to speak openly in Russia about the war because criticising it can land you in prison. But Elena is determined to prevent other mothers from suffering the same experience.

“I want only one thing – for all children to come home,” she said.

“I want them to hear us and give us back our children in the same state we gave them, not cold.”

Pope Francis is in good spirits, eating normally and continuing to receive treatment, Vatican sources have said.

Earlier on Monday morning, the Vatican issued a short statement saying the pontiff was “resting” in hospital and the night “went well”.

The updates on his health follow a statement on Sunday in which the Vatican said Francis was in a critical condition and was showing an “initial, mild” kidney problem.

It said he was “vigilant and well-oriented”, and took part in mass in hospital with those caring for him, but due to the complexity of his case the prognosis was “reserved”.

The Pope, 88, has been at Rome’s Gemelli Hospital since 14 February and is being treated for double pneumonia and chronic bronchitis.

He has a history of respiratory illness, having lost part of one of his lungs to pleurisy as a young man. He also had an acute case of pneumonia in 2023.

Today marks Francis’s 11th day at Gemelli – the longest hospital stay of his papacy. He spent 10 days there in 2021 after he had 33cm (13ins) of his colon removed.

Father Nunzio Corrao, the chaplain at the hospital, said the time had come “to hope against hope” for the Pope, according to Italian media reports.

The Vatican said its secretary of state, Pietro Parolin, will lead a mass in St Peter’s Square this evening at 9pm local time (8pm UK time) to pray for him – and others in hospital.

It comes after the Vatican released a message from the Pope on Sunday – his first from his hospital bed – in which he asked people to pray for him.

His message said: “I am confidently continuing my hospitalisation at the Gemelli Hospital, carrying on with the necessary treatment; and rest is also part of the therapy!”

He added: “In recent days I have received many messages of affection, and I have been particularly struck by the letters and drawings from children.

“Thank you for this closeness, and for the prayers of comfort I have received from all over the world! I entrust you all to the intercession of Mary, and I ask you to pray for me.”

The message is understood to have been written in the last few days.

On Saturday, the Vatican said the pontiff was in a critical condition after a “prolonged respiratory crisis” that required a high flow of oxygen.

It said he had blood transfusions after tests revealed thrombocytopenia, which is associated with anaemia.

Doctors said on Friday he was “not out of danger” and was expected to remain in hospital for at least another week.

They warned the main threat he faced was sepsis, that can occur as a complication of pneumonia, and lead to organ failure and death.

Read more from Sky News:
German election results are in
West Bank ‘turning into mini Gaza’
Grieving Russian mother writes to Putin

Millions around the world have been concerned about Francis’s increasingly frail health.

His condition has given rise to speculation over a possible resignation – which the Vatican has not commented on.

In New York on Sunday, Cardinal Timothy Dolan said the Catholic faithful were united “at the bedside of a dying father”.

“As our Holy Father Pope Francis is in very, very fragile health, and probably close to death,” he said in his homily from the pulpit of St Patrick’s Cathedral.

He later told reporters he hoped and prayed that Francis would “bounce back”.

An American Airlines flight travelling from New York to New Delhi was diverted midair due to a “bomb threat”.

Flight 292 landed at Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Rome Fiumicino Airport “due to a possible security issue,” the airline said in a statement on Sunday, adding later the threat “was determined to be non-credible”.

The airline did not clarify what the security issue was, but a source familiar with the situation told Sky News’ US partner network NBC News it was a bomb threat sent via email.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the crew reported the security issue.

“Safety and security are our top priorities, and we apologise to our customers for the inconvenience,” the airline said in a statement.

The flight requested a diversion to Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci Rome Fiumicino Airport at around 2pm local time, Roberto Rao, a spokesperson for the airport.

“We immediately agreed and organised a safe landing,” Mr Rao told NBC News.

“We don’t know what the security concern was, but my opinion is that it was serious enough to divert the plane, but not urgent, because we received the alert when the plane was over the Caspian Sea, a three hours’ flight from Rome.”

Once in Italian airspace, the plane was escorted by two Italian air force fighter jets and landed in Rome at around 5.30pm local time.

‘What’s going on here?’

Neeraj Chopra, one of the 199 passengers on board, said the captain announced the plane had to turn around about three hours before it was supposed to land in New Delhi because of a change in “security status”.

Mr Chopra, who was traveling to India to visit family, described the mood on board as calm until the captain later announced that fighter jets would be escorting their plane to Rome.

“I felt a little panic of, okay, what’s going on here?” Mr Chopra told the Associated Press. “There’s got to be like something bigger going on here.”

Read more from Sky News:
Pay back the billions of aid, Trump tells Ukraine
Dozens turn out in support of Luigi Mangione

Jonathan Bacon, 22, added that once on the ground, all passengers were loaded on to buses and taken to the terminal, where each passenger and their personal items underwent additional security screenings that were time-consuming and felt “slightly heightened”.

More than two hours after landing, Mr Bacon and his friend said they were still waiting for their checked baggage. “It was definitely the longest flight to Europe I’ve ever taken,” he said.

American Airlines said the plane was inspected and cleared to depart again for New Delhi “as soon as possible” on Monday, after the crew gets some rest.