Upon seeing the body of 34-year-old Mykhaio Kovalenko, who was killed by a Russian missile attack on January 28, 2023, in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, his mother, 66-year-old Nina Kovalenko, patted the side of her son's body as the mother knelt and cried.

　　After seeing the body of 34-year-old Mykhaio Kovalenko, who was killed by a Russian missile attack on January 28, 2023 in Kostyantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, eastern Ukraine, his mother, 66-year-old Nina Kovalenko wept. Koschantynivka was located about 24 km southwest of Bakhmut, the site of the fierce fighting. In a residential courtyard, on the ground surrounded by wreckage and rubble, lay the body of her son, his upper body covered with a sheet. The mother knelt down and patted the side of her son's corpse while crying. The other body, covered by a sheet, lay near a wheelbarrow that the man had probably been pushing at the moment of impact.

　Amid news that NATO countries had pledged to provide Ukraine with heavy tanks, Russian forces bombarded various parts of Ukraine with missiles, exploding drones, and artillery shells in late January 2023. The attacks continued on January 28, when Russian missiles struck the city of Koschantynivka in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk Oblast. The Donetsk Oblast was almost bisected into Russian and Ukrainian control and became the epicenter of the war as Russian forces launched an offensive in the months leading up to the capture of Bakhmut.

　Russian missiles fell on a residential neighborhood in Koschantynivka, killing three civilians and wounding 14 others; four high-rise apartment buildings, a hotel, and a garage were damaged; and the city of Koschantynivka was hit by a Russian missile that hit the city of Koschantynivka, killing three civilians and wounding 14 others. Although Koschantynivka was relatively far from the front lines of the Russo-Ukrainian war, it was still under constant attack by Russian troops. All remaining inhabitants of Koscianchinivka were in mortal danger. Russian troops not only fought Ukrainian forces, but also targeted civilians.

　In a post to the Telegram in the early morning hours of January 28, it was announced that four civilians had been killed and seven wounded in the last 24 hours in a Russian military attack on Donetsk Oblast. A three-story school building was burning in the blaze. Russian forces carried out 10 missile attacks, 26 airstrikes, and 81 artillery strikes on Ukrainian territory between January 28 and the morning of January 29, the Ukrainian military said. Two civilians were killed by shelling in the partially Russian-occupied Cherson Oblast.

Warning: Nina Kovalenko, 66, crying over the body of her son Mykhailo Kovalenko, 36, who was killed in a strike on Saturday in Kostyantynivka, in eastern Ukraine.(Lynsey Addario for The New York Times)