Serhiy Perebyinis is a married father of two from Ukraine. He was recently interviewed by CNN's Erin Burnett, who wanted to speak to Serhiy about the loss of his wife and two children, ages 18 and 9.
Serhiy found out about the trio's deaths in a truly excruciating way: He saw a photo of their bodies on Twitter. He also revealed that after three days, he was able to recover the bodies of his family.
Serhiy was in eastern Ukraine taking care of his mother at the same time his wife was trying to leave the country with their children. Men between the ages of 18 and 60 are currently being asked to remain in Ukraine in case they are needed during the war.
He recalled the last conversation he had with his wife, Tetiana: "That was the day when already there was no water, electricity, gas, and we discussed — I spoke to her at 10 p.m., even though at that point there was no connectivity either. But I managed to get through and had a discussion about potential evacuation."
He added that his family planned to leave the country safely, but had to change their plans. "At the last moment however, the convoy she was planning to travel with was shelled at and fired at," he said. "And then she came on foot to the bridge, trying to make an escape on foot."
He went on to describe his wife, adding, "She was a very cheerful person, she was the financial director of a large American company. We spent lots of time together as a family. We loved bicycles, in winter we went skiing, and she loved very much planting flowers at her dacha, countryside cottage."
Serhiy was able to keep up with the location of his wife and children by using Google geolocation, and he realized on the day they died that something had shifted in terms of their whereabouts. As he put it, "I noticed that there was an unusual geolocation between Kyiv and their pin. And then 20 minutes later, her phone moved to another location, to a hospital in Kyiv. And I suspected something was wrong."
He asked friends to visit local hospitals to see if they could get any information about his family, but then ultimately saw their bodies on Twitter. "And then I saw a photo on Twitter, and I recognized my children," he explained. "I recognized their things and their clothes. And I called my friends to say that the children are dead. Their bodies are lying on pavement."
