A 7-year-old Ukrainian girl who travelled to Israel to get leukaemia treatment after Russia attacked her home country was killed in an Iranian strike
A 7-year-old Ukrainian girl who travelled to Israel to get leukaemia treatment after Russia attacked her home country was killed in an Iranian strike on the city of Bat Yam, south of Tel Aviv, on Sunday, Israeli President Isaac Herzog announced on X.
Herzog said Nastya Borik was killed alongside four members of her family: her mother Mariia, 30, her grandmother Lena, 60, and her two cousins – Ilya, 13, and Konstantin, nine. Ukrainian authorities said Sunday that five Ukrainian citizens were killed in the attack, but they did not release any details.
Herzog said the family came to Israel in December 2022 because Nastya needed treatment. “Although she initially responded, the disease returned, and a bone marrow transplant failed to stop the aggressive leukaemia,” Herzog said.
“She came seeking life. Instead, she was murdered,” he added.
Mariia Pieshkurova, Nastya’s mother, shared frequent updates about Nastya’s treatment on her Instagram account, saying Nastya was first diagnosed in August 2022.
“Since that day, I have been living in a parallel reality where the main thing is to save her. To breathe. To not give up,” she said in a post in April.
According to Pieshkurova, Nastya had a relapse in September 2024 and then again in April this year.
Her last post was dated May 27. She wrote: “I will save my daughter, no matter what it takes … Because no one else will fight like I will. Because Nastya is my life. She is all I have. And as long as I breathe, I scream, I beg, I believe, I fight.”
Nastya’s father, Artem Borik, is currently serving in the Ukrainian army, fighting Russia on the front line in Ukraine, Herzog said.
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