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

Trump’s pride vs Putin’s legacy: What to expect from pivotal Ukraine summit

Published

9 hours ago

August 14, 2025

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Trump's pride vs Putin's legacy: What to expect from pivotal Ukraine summit

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will meet for the first time in six years on Friday, with a possible deal to end the Ukraine war on the agenda.

Mr Trump has threatened “very severe consequences” if his Russian counterpart doesn’t agree to a ceasefire at the summit, being hosted at a remote US army base in snowy Anchorage, Alaska.

Follow latest updates from Ukraine war

But there are fears they will discuss a deal robbing Ukraine of the land currently occupied by Russia – something Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he won’t accept.

Here’s what three of our correspondents think ahead of the much-anticipated face-to-face.

Putin’s legacy is at stake – he’ll want territory and more
By Ivor Bennett, Moscow correspondent

Putin doesn’t just want victory. He needs it.

Three and a half years after he ordered the invasion of Ukraine, this war has to end in a visible win for the Russian president. It can’t have been for nothing. His legacy is at stake.

So the only deal I think he’ll be willing to accept at Friday’s summit is one that secures Moscow’s goals.

These include territory (full control of the four Ukrainian regions which Russia has already claimed), permanent neutrality for Kyiv and limits on its armed forces.

I expect he’ll be trying to convince Trump that such a deal is the quickest path to peace. The only alternative, in Russia’s eyes, is an outright triumph on the battlefield.

I think Putin‘s hope is that the American president agrees with this view and then gives Ukraine a choice: accept our terms or go it alone without US support.

A deal like that might not be possible this week, but it may be in the future if Putin can give Trump something in return.

That’s why there’s been lots of talk from Moscow this week about all the lucrative business deals that can come from better US-Russia relations.

The Kremlin will want to use this opportunity to remind the White House of what else it can offer, apart from an end to the fighting.

Ukraine would rather this summit not be happening
By Dominic Waghorn, international affairs editor

Ukraine would far rather this meeting wasn’t happening.

Trump seemed to have lost patience with Putin and was about to hit Russia with more severe sanctions until he was distracted by the Russian leader’s suggestion that they meet.

Ukrainians say the Alaska summit rewards Putin by putting him back on the world stage.

But the meeting is happening, and they have to be realistic.

Most of all, they want a ceasefire before any negotiations can happen. Then they want the promise of security guarantees.

That is because they know that Putin may well come back for more even if peace does break out. They need to be able to defend themselves should that happen.

And they want the promise of reparations to rebuild their country, devastated by Putin’s wanton, unprovoked act of aggression.

There are billions of Russian roubles and assets frozen across the West. They want them released and sent their way.

What they fear is Trump being hoodwinked by Putin with the lure of profit from US-Russian relations being restored, regardless of Ukraine’s fate.

That would allow Russia to regain its strength, rearm and prepare for another round of fighting in a few years’ time.

Trump and his golf buddy-turned-negotiator Steve Witkoff appear to believe Putin might be satisfied with keeping some of the land he has taken by force.

Putin says he wants much more than that. He wants Ukraine to cease to exist as a country separate from Russia.

Any agreement short of that is only likely to be temporary.

Trump’s pride on the line – he has a reputation to restore
By Martha Kelner, US correspondent

As with anything Donald Trump does, he already has a picture in his mind.

The image of Trump shaking hands with the ultimate strongman leader, Vladimir Putin, on US soil calls to his vanity and love of an attention-grabbing moment.

There is also pride at stake.

Trump campaigned saying he would end the Russia-Ukraine war on his first day in office, so there is an element of him wanting to follow through on that promise to voters, even though it’s taken him 200-plus days in office and all he’s got so far is this meeting, without apparently any concessions on Putin’s end.

In Trump’s mind – and in the minds of many of his supporters – he is the master negotiator, the chief dealmaker, and he wants to bolster that reputation.

He is keen to further the notion that he negotiates in a different, more straightforward way than his predecessors and that it is paying dividends.

So far, despite sanctions on Russia, despite warnings and deadlines, the situation in Ukraine is only getting worse.

He’s hoping that this meeting, simply the act of sitting down with Putin, can change the tide.

The Russian president may have different ideas.

World

Trump’s targets for Putin summit appear fluid – can he even get a ceasefire?

Published

9 hours ago

August 14, 2025

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Trump's targets for Putin summit appear fluid - can he even get a ceasefire?

The “if” was doing some heavy lifting.

Mr Trump floated the idea of a second meeting, this one between Putin, Zelenskyy and possibly himself, “if” the Alaska summit goes well.

Speaking to European leaders earlier, in a virtual call he rated at “10” and “very friendly”, he’d shared his intention to try to broker a ceasefire on Friday.

So, the strategy is crystallising – he will press for a trilateral meeting to discuss territory “if” he manages to secure a truce during the bilateral meeting.

But that begs the obvious question: what if he can’t?

The US president is keeping his options open – rating the chance of a second meeting as “very good” but preparing the ground for failure too.

“There may be no second meeting because if I feel that it is not appropriate to have it because I didn’t get the answers that we have to have, then we’re not going to have a second meeting,” he said.

Unusually, given how often he talks about his abilities, he conceded that he may not persuade Vladimir Putin to stop targeting civilians.

But without elaborating on what any sanctions might be, he warned that Russia would face “very severe consequences” if it doesn’t end the war.

Even if he achieves the seemingly impossible – a halt to the fighting – there seems little chance of agreement on any swapping of territory.

Mr Zelenskyy has told Mr Trump that Putin “is bluffing” and wants to “push forward along the whole front” not return land.

In the space of a week, Donald Trump has gone from talking about a land-swapping deal, to a “listening exercise”, to the potential for a ceasefire.

His expectations appear changeable, an indication of how fluid back-room negotiations are in the run-up to his first face-to-face with Vladimir Putin in six years.

He described Friday’s summit as “setting the table for a second meeting”, but that’s presumptuous when the meal – or deal – isn’t cooked yet.

World

Over 100 people killed in Gaza in 24 hours, officials say, marking deadliest day in a week

Published

15 hours ago

August 13, 2025

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Over 100 people killed in Gaza in 24 hours, officials say, marking deadliest day in a week

More than 100 people have been killed in Gaza within 24 hours, officials there have said – the deadliest day recorded in a week.

The Gaza health ministry said 123 people were killed, adding to the tens of thousands of fatalities during the near two-year war raging in the Strip.

It comes as officials said Israel’s planned re-seizure of Gaza City, which it took in the early days of the war before withdrawing, is likely weeks away.

Follow the latest: Netanyahu accused of having ‘lost the plot’

Eastern areas of Gaza City were bombed heavily by Israeli planes and tanks, according to residents, who said that many homes were destroyed in the Zeitoun and Shejaia neighbourhoods overnight.

Al-Ahli hospital said 12 people were killed in an airstrike on a house in Zeitoun.

Israeli tanks also destroyed several homes in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, Palestinian medics said.

They added that in central Gaza, Israeli gunfire killed nine people seeking aid in two separate incidents. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) did not comment on this.

The number of Palestinians who died of starvation and malnutrition in Gaza has risen to 235, including 106 children, since the war began, following the death of eight more people, including three children, in the past 24 hours, the Gaza health ministry said.

The malnutrition and hunger death figures have been reported by the Hamas-run ministry and have been disputed by Israel.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday: “If we had a starvation policy, no one in Gaza would have survived after two years of war.”

He also repeated the allegation that Hamas has been looting aid trucks and claimed uncollected food has been “rotting” at the border, blaming the UN for not distributing it.

The latest death figures come as Hamas held further talks with Egyptian mediators in Cairo with a focus on stopping the war, delivering aid and “enduring the suffering of our people in Gaza”, an official for the group said in a statement.

Egyptian security sources said the possibility of a comprehensive ceasefire would also be discussed.

This would see Hamas relinquish governance in Gaza and concede its weapons, with a Hamas official saying the group was open to all ideas as long as Israel would end the war and pull out of Gaza.

But the official added that “laying down arms before the occupation is dismissed as impossible”.

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Meanwhile, Mr Netanyahu reiterated that Palestinians should simply leave Gaza, an idea which has also been enthusiastically floated by US President Donald Trump.

“They’re not being pushed out, they’ll be allowed to exit,” Mr Netanyahu told Israeli television channel i24NEWS. “All those who are concerned for the Palestinians and say they want to help the Palestinians should open their gates and stop lecturing us.”

World leaders have rejected the idea of displacing the Gaza population, and Mr Netanyahu’s plan to expand military control over Gaza, which Israeli sources said could be launched in October, has increased global outcry over the widespread devastation, displacement and hunger in the enclave.

The humanitarian crisis in Gaza is at “unimaginable levels”, Britain and 26 partners said in a statement on Tuesday, warning: “Famine is unfolding before our eyes.”

The statement added: “Urgent action is needed now to halt and reverse starvation. Humanitarian space must be protected, and aid should never be politicised.”

It was signed by the foreign ministers of Australia, Belgium, Canada, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK.

The war in Gaza began on 7 October 2023 when Hamas killed about 1,200 people – mostly civilians – and abducted 251 others in its attack.

Most of the hostages have been released in ceasefires or other deals. It is believed Hamas is still holding 50 captives, with 20 believed to be alive.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians in its count.