Inside the coffin before Olena Dereko, 40, lay the body of her only daughter. They had not seen each other for more than a month because of the Russian invasion.
Not being able to touch her child left her inconsolable. So, she tried.
The lid was heavy but she persisted in trying to pry it open, her husband, Andrii, 41, pulled her back with each attempt, desperate to protect his wife from further misery.
Inside that coffin were the mutilated remains of their child, who had in February celebrated her 23rd birthday.
It was better for her mother to remember her girl as she had been alive, not the way the Russian soldiers had left her.
“She was shot at point blank range. Almost half of her head was missing,” Andrii Dereko told The Daily Telegraph.
