Ukraine’s super gran: ‘I went into the wolf’s lair to save my grandson’

Published

1 year ago

September 23, 2023

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“I was going into the wolf’s lair but I had to overcome my fear because I was the only one who could rescue my grandson.”

Ilya’s mother was dead. The missile strike that killed her left him bleeding, shrapnel embedded in his legs.

Under the guise of an “evacuation”, Russian soldiers stole the nine-year-old from his home and brought him across the border into occupied Donetsk in March 2022.

He might never have seen his family again.

But as bombs rained down on Ukrainian cities and fighter jets screamed through the skies, his grandmother set out on a desperate rescue mission.

This is the story of how one brave grandma crossed four borders and risked everything to bring her beloved grandson home.

Sheltering in the dark

“Mariupol was flourishing, it was booming,” Olena Matvienko, 64, says. The city she had once called home was beautiful, she recalled, like a fairy tale.

When Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Olena remembers thinking that it would not last long.

But then the bombs came, and the soldiers.

Olena was living in western Ukraine far away from the Russian advances. But her daughter and grandson in Mariupol were not as lucky.

Huge areas of the city were razed to the ground, once proud apartment blocks obliterated and green parks scorched black. The rest was swiftly occupied, with the notable exception of the stoic defence of a steel factory.

In downtown Mariupol, Olena’s daughter Natalya and grandson Ilya hid in a basement with several others as explosions shook the building.

For 12 days they sheltered in that dark space, cooking what food they had on a fire outside.

‘My daughter died that night’

When they eventually ran out of supplies they were forced to leave. They walked five miles to the outskirts of the city where they lived. When they reached their road they saw their home had been reduced to rubble.

Intense shelling rocked the streets around them, and the pair sought shelter in the building next door. Six days passed.

Then on 20 March, a missile hammered into their building, sending smoke and dust pouring into the air.

“My daughter was injured in the head and my grandson had shrapnel in his right thigh, his left thigh was torn away,” Olena says.

She’s speaking to Sky News from her home in Uzghorod in western Ukraine. There are toys on the shelves. Behind her Ilya is playing and flits in and out of view.

Olena looks down as she tells this part of the story, her face solemn.

“My daughter died that night. They buried her in front of the house where we used to live.”

The next morning, the Russians came.

Stolen away to enemy territory

The soldiers separated the adults from their children and sent them to district 17 in the centre of Mariupol.

Just hours after losing his mother, Ilya was snatched away from Ukraine into Russian-held territory like so many others. Thousands have never returned.

In a hospital in Donetsk doctors treated Ilya. At one point they considered amputating his leg but instead gave him two skin grafts.

There was talk about taking him to Moscow with other children. But Ilya told the Russians he did not want to go anywhere and that he was going to wait for his grandma.

Olena, meanwhile, was frantically trying to find out what had happened to her daughter and grandson. Eventually someone she knew passed on the devastating news.

“At first I felt hysterical. The pain was overwhelming,” she says.

“But the thought that my grandson was in Donetsk, alone without anyone, helped me overcome the pain and pull myself together.

“And so I started thinking about how I could take him back to Ukraine.”

‘I was the only one who could rescue Ilya’

Olena wrote to organisations, agencies, everyone she could think of, asking for help to get Ilya back.

Eventually she got a reply from the office of Ukraine’s president, written by deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

A plan was hatched and arrangements made for Olena to go and fetch her grandson. The details, including the route she took to get to Ilya, are being kept secret.

It was dangerous. Olena was leaving free Ukraine and heading to parts of the country that have been outside Kyiv’s control for nearly a decade.

“I was scared. I did not want to be there. I was going into the wolf’s lair but I had to overcome my fear because I was the only one who could rescue my grandson.

“The only thing I could think about was getting Ilya back to Ukraine.”

It took about six days to reach the city of Donetsk. Olena crossed four borders and was finally reunited with Ilya at the hospital on 21 April.

“I cried when I saw Ilya,” she says. “He couldn’t believe that it was me at first. He was very happy and we hugged each other.”

Ilya still had shrapnel in his legs and couldn’t walk, but they were able to leave the hospital together.

The long journey home

They travelled from the hospital by ambulance but ran into trouble at the border between the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic and Russia.

“They did not want to let me go because I was coming from the western part of Ukraine,” Olena says. “But when I showed them my passport and it said Mariupol they allowed me to cross the border.”

She’s asked if she was surprised they had let her and Ilya go. “Speaking honestly, yes. I was very surprised.”

Their route home is likewise being kept secret, but we can report that they travelled to Moscow by car. From there they were able to fly to Turkey and then on to Poland, and from there they took a train to Kyiv.

Finally, after weeks of worry, their journey was over. They were back in free Ukraine.

At this point in her story Olena seems to tear up, emotions bubbling to the surface as she speaks of the moment she set foot on familiar soil.

“It was a big relief when we finally crossed the border into Ukraine: we were home.

“Yes, all my property had been destroyed. But I was finally home and I was with my grandson.”

A meeting with Volodymyr Zelenskyy

Ilya still couldn’t walk, however, and spent some time at a children’s hospital in Kyiv. Doctors took four more pieces of metal out of his leg.

They were visited there by Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Olena looked proudly at her grandson as he shook hands with the smiling Ukrainian president from his hospital bed.

For the next month-and-a-half, Olena took care of her grandson – she calls him Ilyushka fondly – in the city of Uzghorod in western Ukraine where they still live today.

“At first he was very reserved after what happened,” she says. “He was afraid of things like air raid sirens and thunderstorms.”

With time, Ilya regained the ability to walk. “He still limps a little bit but he feels much better,” Olena says.

He was assisted by the Museum of Civilian Voices, a project run by the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, which helped him to access medical and psychological treatment.

The museum is a huge collection of stories of civilians affected by the war in Ukraine, with a mission to share them in hope of a better future.

Despite losing his parents and his home, Ilya – now 10 years old – has made new friends and settled into his new home.

He was the first child to be liberated from occupied Ukraine.

Ilya still has 11 jagged pieces of shrapnel in his body, an enduring legacy of the missile strike that killed his mother a year-and-a-half ago.

But Olena adds: “Now he feels alive. He knows that he is loved here.

“He’s my sense of life.”

World

Israel checking reports of hostage Shiri Bibas’s body being handed over

Published

17 hours ago

February 22, 2025

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Israel checking reports of hostage Shiri Bibas's body being handed over

Hamas says the body of hostage Shiri Bibas has now been handed over, according to the group’s Al-Aqsa TV channel – as the Israeli military says it is checking the reports.

Israel said on Thursday that Ms Bibas was not among the four bodies handed over on Thursday as part of the ceasefire agreement, instead receiving an “anonymous body without identification”.

The failure to hand over the correct body caused outrage in Israel, and prompted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to vow that Hamas “pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation”.

Follow latest: Israel claims Hamas killed child hostages with their ‘bare hands’

In a short statement, the Red Cross confirmed it had received human remains and transferred them to Israeli authorities.

The statement did not specify whose remains were believed to be in transit.

Dr Salem Attalah, deputy secretary general for the Palestinian Mujahedeen Brigades, said it handed over Ms Bibas’ remains to the Red Cross.

The militant group is thought to have been holding the mother and her two boys, Kfir and Ariel.

Hamas previously claimed there was the “possibility of an error or overlap in the bodies” which may have been caused by Israel “targeting and bombing the place where the family was with other Palestinians”.

Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, later said “unfortunate mistakes” occurred and also suggested Israeli bombing had mixed the bodies of Israeli hostages and Palestinians.

He added in a statement: “We confirm that it is not in our values or our interest to keep any bodies or not to abide by the covenants and agreements that we sign.”

In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said: “Following the reports regarding Shiri Bibas, they are currently under review. IDF representatives are in contact with the family.”

Ms Bibas was kidnapped with her sons – four-year-old Ariel, and nine-month-old Kfir – from the Niz Or kibbutz during the group’s terror attack on Israel in October 2023.

The IDF confirmed the bodies of the two boys were positively identified on Thursday. However, it claimed the children had been murdered by Hamas with “bare hands”.

Hamas however claimed Ms Bibas and her children were all killed in an Israeli airstrike in November 2023, near the start of the war.

It comes ahead of the next round of hostage releases on Saturday – the final one during the first six-week phase of the ceasefire agreement, which came into effect last month.

The hostages due for release are Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al Sayed and Avera Mengisto.

According to the Hamas prisoners’ media office, Israel will be releasing 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Saturday, adding to the hundreds already released.

It also comes after Israeli defence minister Israel Katz instructed the IDF to intensify operations in the West Bank after a series of bus explosions in a city near Tel Aviv.

Two of the blasts were in the city of Bat Yam on Thursday night, and a third was reported in the nearby town of Holon. No injuries were reported.

World

Hamas names six Israeli hostages to be released on Saturday

Published

1 day ago

February 21, 2025

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Hamas names six Israeli hostages to be released on Saturday

Hamas has named six Israeli hostages who are set to be released on Saturday while Israel is expected to release more than 600 Palestinian prisoners as part of a ceasefire agreement between the parties.

The hostages due for release are Eliya Cohen, Omer Shem Tov, Tal Shoham, Omer Wenkert, Hisham al-Sayed and Avera Mengisto.

According to Hamas’s prisoners media office, Israel will be releasing 602 Palestinian prisoners and detainees on Saturday, adding to the hundreds already released since the ceasefire took effect last month.

The release of the hostages on Saturday is the final one in this phase of the Gaza truce deal.

Mr Mengisto and Mr al-Sayed are civilians who entered the besieged enclave of Gaza a decade ago and have been held there since.

Israelis who survived being held prisoner in Gaza, where a powerful bombing campaign has left much of it destroyed, have been released in small groups since the first six-week phase began last month.

The start of negotiations for a second phase of the ceasefire is expected in the coming days.

Israel and Hamas have been at war since the latter, a militant group ruling Gaza, carried out a massacre of 1,200 people in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 and took 251 hostage.

The latest list of hostages set for release comes amid heightened tensions between the parties after Israel claimed the body of hostage Shiri Bibas wasn’t actually hers and it had instead received the remains of an “anonymous body without identification”.

Hamas responded that Ms Bibas’s remains appear to have been mixed with other human remains in what it claims was an “Israeli airstrike”.

Her body was meant to be handed over on Thursday alongside the bodies of her two children, who the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed they received.

The body of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted, was also returned.

The Bibas family has become a powerful symbol of the 251 Israelis kidnapped on 7 October 2023 – not least because Kfir was the youngest taken.

The children’s father, Yarden Bibas, was released on 1 February as part of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

Since the start of the war in October 2023, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.

World

Hostage’s body not returned as remains ‘mixed’ in rubble, Hamas says – with Netanyahu warning group ‘will pay’

Published

1 day ago

February 21, 2025

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Hostage's body not returned as remains 'mixed' in rubble, Hamas says - with Netanyahu warning group 'will pay'

Hamas says the remains of Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas appear to have been mixed with other human remains in what it claims was an “Israeli airstrike”.

Israel said the body handed over by Hamas was not Shiri’s, saying it had instead received the remains of an “anonymous body without identification”.

Israel claimed today forensic evidence showed Shiri and her two children were murdered in captivity by Hamas. Sky News has asked the IDF to provide evidence for their claims, but they have refused to comment further.

The Palestinian group claims Shiri and her children were all killed in Israeli airstrikes near the start of the war.

Ms Bibas was kidnapped with her sons – four-year-old Ariel, and nine-month-old Kfir – from the Niz Or kibbutz during the Palestinian militant group’s incursion into Israel in October 2023.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) confirmed it received the bodies of Ariel and Kfir on Thursday.

However, it said the body that Hamas had claimed was their mother was not her and the group had therefore violated the ceasefire agreement.

“During the identification process, it was found that the additional body received was not that of Shiri Bibas, and no match was found for any other abductee. It is an anonymous body without identification,” it said in a statement.

“This is a very serious violation by the Hamas terrorist organisation, which is required by the agreement to return four dead abductees. We demand that Hamas return Shiri home along with all of our abductees.”

Hamas said there was the “possibility of an error or overlap in the bodies” due to Israeli bombing. Hamas has said they were all killed in Israeli airstrikes near the start of the war. The group has never provided evidence to back this up. Israel says the Bibas family were murdered by Hamas in captivity.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later said Israel would make Hamas pay for failing to release Shiri’s body, calling it a “cruel and malicious violation”.

“We will act with determination to bring Shiri home along with all our hostages – both living and dead – and ensure Hamas pays the full price for this cruel and evil violation of the agreement,” he said in a video statement.

The body of journalist and peace activist Oded Lifshitz, who was 83 when he was abducted, was also handed over on Thursday.

Hamas handed over the remains as part of the Gaza ceasefire agreement which was reached with Israel last month.

The bodies were transferred in four black coffins in a carefully orchestrated public display as a crowd of Palestinians and dozens of armed Hamas militants watched.

Israelis lined the road in the rain near the Gaza border to pay their respects as the convoy carrying the coffins drove by.

In Tel Aviv, people gathered, some weeping, in a public square opposite Israel’s defence headquarters that has come to be known as Hostages Square.

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to eliminate Hamas and said the four coffins meant “more than ever” that Israel had to ensure there was no repeat of the 7 October attack.

Mr Netanyahu said: “Our loved ones’ blood is shouting at us from the soil and is obliging us to settle the score with the despicable murderers, and we will.”

Israel’s President Isaac Herzog said: “Agony. Pain. There are no words. Our hearts – the hearts of an entire nation – lie in tatters.”

United Nations human rights chief, Volker Turk, called the parading of the four bodies “cruel” and “inhumane” in a statement on Thursday.

He said: “Under international law, any handover of the remains of deceased must comply with the prohibition of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, ensuring respect for the dignity of the deceased and their families.”

The Bibas family has become a powerful symbol of the 251 Israelis kidnapped on 7 October – not least because Kfir was the youngest taken.

The children’s father, Yarden Bibas, was released on 1 February as part of the ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.

Sombre moment for Israelis – as Hamas uses opportunity for propaganda

Diana Magnay

International correspondent

@DiMagnaySky

The return of the bodies of four Israeli hostages is a “sombre moment” for everybody in Israel and Jews across the world, our international correspondent Diana Magnay says.

She says the two young boys, Ariel and Kfir, “really became a symbol of the tremendous suffering 7 October caused”.

“Now, to have them returned back in this way is tragic.”

Referring to the scenes of coffins being transferred to the Red Cross, Magnay says Hamas has chosen to use this “as a propaganda opportunity”.

“They have missiles on the stage where the four coffins were, saying they were killed by US bombs,” she explains.

She says Hamas’s main message is “this was caused by you, you should take responsibility for it”.

She adds that 7 October was caused by Hamas, and has brought “untold suffering to both Israel and Palestinians”.

Meanwhile, six living hostages, the final due to be freed under the first phase of the Gaza truce deal, will be released on Saturday, according to Hamas.

Israelis who survived being held prisoner in Gaza have been released in small groups since the first six-week phase began last month.

The deal has provided a vital pause in the fighting that’s devastated Gaza and left tens of thousands dead.

At least 1,200 people were killed in the attack that started the war.

Since then, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 48,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks. Its figures do not differentiate between civilians and fighters.