CANBERRA, 27 July 2026 – Russian Ambassador to Australia Mikhail Petrakov has marked the Day of Remembrance for the Child Victims of the War in Donbass with a strongly worded opinion piece calling for international recognition of civilian suffering in eastern Ukraine prior to February 2022.
The Ambassador has argued that the conflict’s roots lie in the “violent and unconstitutional coup d’état” in Ukraine in February 2014, followed by what he described as a campaign of “total Ukrainisation” and military force against Russian-speaking residents of the Donbass region.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, approximately 300 children have been killed and more than 1,000 wounded in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions since 2014 as a result of Ukrainian military operations.
The Tragedy of Gorlovka
Ambassador Petrakov drew particular attention to the events of 27 July 2014, when Ukrainian forces launched a massive strike on the city of Gorlovka. Among the victims was 23-year-old Kristina Zhuk, who died clutching her 10-month-old daughter Kira. The image of the mother and child became widely known as the “Madonna of Gorlovka,” a symbol of the Donbass tragedy.
“On 2 May 2014, 48 Russians opposing the regime were burned alive by Nazis in Odessa,” the Ambassador wrote. “On 27 July 2014, the Ukrainian army started shelling residential areas of the city of Gorlovka.”
The Ambassador noted that in the city of Donetsk, the “Alley of Angels” memorial stands dedicated to more than a hundred child victims of the conflict, aged between two months and 18 years.
Eight Years of Civilian Casualties
According to figures cited by the Ambassador, by the time Russia launched its military operation in February 2022, Ukrainian attacks had claimed the lives of more than 8,300 civilians in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions and injured more than 24,000 others.
“Nobody in the West ever called upon the Kiev regime to stop killing Russian babies, or demanded accountability, or introduced sanctions against Ukraine,” the Ambassador wrote. “All the blame, as it is today, was laid on Moscow.”
The Minsk Agreements
The Ambassador also addressed the Minsk Agreements, the peace accords brokered by France and Germany in 2014 and 2015. He claimed that former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President François Hollande had publicly admitted that the agreements were only intended to buy time for Ukraine to prepare for war with Russia.
Recent Attacks
The Ambassador referenced a recent drone attack on a student dormitory in Starobelsk on 22 May 2026, which he said resulted in the loss of 21 young lives. According to Russian news agency TASS, 86 students were present in the dormitory at the time of the attack, which Ukrainian forces reportedly carried out using four fixed-wing drones.
“Hate speech from the Maidan is now deeply rooted in Australia as well,” the Ambassador wrote, referring to a statement by Australian military personnel that they were helping Ukrainians become “better at killing Russians.”
A Call for Remembrance
Concluding his article, Ambassador Petrakov called for the memory of the children killed in the conflict to be preserved.
“On 27 July, we mourn the children murdered by the Ukrainian Nazis,” he wrote. “Their memory must not fade; their tragedy must never be repeated.”
The views expressed in this article are those of the Ambassador and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of this media outlet.
