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

Published

2 years 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

Donald Trump announces 30% tariff on imports from EU

Published

4 hours ago

July 12, 2025

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Donald Trump announces 30% tariff on imports from EU

Donald Trump has announced he will impose a 30% tariff on imports from the European Union from 1 August.

The tariffs could make everything from French cheese and Italian leather goods to German electronics and Spanish pharmaceuticals more expensive in the US.

Mr Trump has also imposed a 30% tariff on goods from Mexico, according to a post from his Truth Social account.

Announcing the moves in separate letters on the account, the president said the US trade deficit was a national security threat.

In his letter to the EU, he wrote: “We have had years to discuss our trading relationship with The European Union, and we have concluded we must move away from these long-term, large, and persistent, trade Deficits, engendered by your tariff, and non-Tariff, policies, and trade barriers.

“Our relationship has been, unfortunately, far from reciprocal.”

In his letter to Mexico, Mr Trump said he did not think the country had done enough to stop the US from turning into a “narco-trafficking playground”.

The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said today that the EU could adopt “proportionate countermeasures” if the US proceeds with imposing the 30% tariff.

Ms von der Leyen, who heads the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement that the bloc remained ready “to continue working towards an agreement by Aug 1”.

“Few economies in the world match the European Union’s level of openness and adherence to fair trading practices,” she continued.

“We will take all necessary steps to safeguard EU interests, including the adoption of proportionate countermeasures if required.”

Ms von der Leyen has also said imposing tariffs on EU exports would “disrupt essential transatlantic supply chains”.

Meanwhile, Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on the X social media platform that Mr Trump’s announcement was “very concerning and not the way forward”.

He added: “The European Commission can count on our full support. As the EU we must remain united and resolute in pursuing an outcome with the United States that is mutually beneficial.”

Mexico’s economy ministry said a bilateral working group aims to reach an alternative to the 30% US tariffs before they are due to take effect.

The country was informed by the US that it would receive a letter about the tariffs, the ministry’s statement said, adding that Mexico was negotiating.

Trump’s tariff threats and delays

On his so-called “liberation day” in April, Mr Trump unleashed “reciprocal tariffs” on many of America’s trade partners.

The US president said he was targeting countries with which America has a trade imbalance.

However, since then he’s backed down in a spiralling tit-for-tat tariff face-off with China, and struck a deal with the UK.

The US imposed a 20% tariff on imported goods from the EU in April but it was later paused and the bloc has since been paying a baseline tariff of 10% on goods it exports to the US.

In May, while the US and EU where holding trade negotiations, Mr Trump threated to impose a 50% tariff on the bloc as talks didn’t progress as he would have liked.

However, he later announced he was delaying the imposition of that tariff while negotiations over a trade deal took place.

As of earlier this week, the EU’s executive commission, which handles trade issues for the bloc’s 27-member nations, said its leaders were still hoping to strike a trade deal with the Trump administration.

Without one, the EU said it was prepared to retaliate with tariffs on hundreds of American products, ranging from beef and auto parts to beer and Boeing airplanes.

World

‘At least 798 killed’ at Gaza aid points – as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

Published

23 hours ago

July 11, 2025

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'At least 798 killed' at Gaza aid points - as medical charity warns acute malnutrition at all-time high

At least 798 people in Gaza have reportedly been killed while receiving aid in the past six weeks – while acute malnutrition is said to have reached an all-time high.

The UN human rights office said 615 of the deaths – between 27 May and 7 July – were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” said Ravina Shamdasani, from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Its figures are based on a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries, and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as non-governmental organisations (NGOs), its partners on the ground, and Hamas-run health authorities.

Aid agency Project Hope said on Thursday that 10 children were among at least 15 people killed as they waited for its clinic in Deir al Balah to open.

The GHF has claimed the UN figures are “false and misleading” and has repeatedly denied any violence at or around its sites.

Meanwhile, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) – also known as Doctors Without Borders – said two of its sites were seeing their worst-ever levels of severe malnutrition.

Cases at its Gaza City clinic are said to have tripled from 293 in May to 983 in early July.

“Over 700 pregnant or breastfeeding women and nearly 500 children are now receiving emergency nutritional care,” MSF said.

The humanitarian medical charity said food prices were at extreme levels, with sugar at $766 (£567) per kilo and flour $30 (£22) per kilo, and many families surviving on one meal of rice or lentils a day.

It’s a major concern for the estimated 55,000 pregnant women in Gaza, who risk miscarriage, stillbirth and malnourished infants because of the shortages.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the coastal territory.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip.

The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what it says is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies from falling into the hands of militants.

After the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians trying to reach the aid hubs, the United Nations has called the GHF’s aid model “inherently unsafe” and a violation of humanitarian impartiality standards.

In response, a GHF spokesperson said: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.

World

At least 798 people have been killed at Gaza aid points, the UN says

Published

1 day ago

July 11, 2025

admin

At least 798 people in Gaza have been killed while receiving aid in six weeks, the UN human rights office has said.

A spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said 615 of the killings were “in the vicinity” of sites run by the controversial US and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).

A further 183 people killed were “presumably on the route of aid convoys,” Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.

The office said its figures are based on numbers from a range of sources, including hospitals, cemeteries and families in the Gaza Strip, as well as NGOs, its partners on the ground and the Hamas-run health authorities.

The GHF has claimed the figures are “false and misleading”. It has repeatedly denied there has been any violence at or around its sites.

The organisation began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, after Israel eased its 11-week blockade of aid into the enclave.

It has four distribution centres, three of which are in the southern Gaza Strip. The sites, kept off-limits to independent media, are guarded by private security contractors and located in zones where the Israeli military operates.

Palestinian witnesses say Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire towards crowds of people going to receive aid.

The Israeli military says it has fired warning shots at people who have behaved in what they say is a suspicious manner.

It says its forces operate near the aid sites to stop supplies falling into the hands of militants.

In response, a GHF spokesperson told the Reuters news agency: “The fact is the most deadly attacks on aid sites have been linked to UN convoys.”

The GHF says it has delivered more than 70 million meals to Gazans in five weeks and claims other humanitarian groups had “nearly all of their aid looted” by Hamas or criminal gangs.