Children from Mariupol took part in the concert-rally held on February 22 in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium, thanking the military Yuri Gagarin with the call sign "Angel" for "saving". "Important Stories" told about six children who were on stage that day. Two girls had their mother killed in Mariupol, three others were also in Mariupol, and have already managed to star in several Russian shows.
At the concert, they gave a microphone to 15-year-old Anya Naumenko, who said: “Thanks to Uncle Yura for saving me, my sister and hundreds of thousands of children from Mariupol,” and then stammered, admitting that she had forgotten the words. As Important Stories found out, Anya's younger sister Karolina was also on stage. The girls also have a brother Daniel, but he was not at the concert. The journalists learned that the children were regularly taken away from the family by the guardianship authorities because of the “asocial” lifestyle of the mother, but then returned again. After the start of the war, the mother of the children, Olga, with her common-law husband and children, hid in a shelter. In early April, she went shopping for cigarettes and was killed by rocket fragments on the way. The children were taken by Olga's common-law husband. Daniel's whereabouts are unknown.
Another child who took part in the concert is 10-year-old Kostya Vashchishin. He and his family still live in Mariupol. The family's neighbor Mikhail recognized Kostya in a video from Luzhniki. “I don't think they moved to Moscow. I believe that they were invited to Moscow, and this is such a short-term “business trip”, ”he told reporters.
There were three other children at the concert who were identified by Important Stories – two girls and a boy. Together with their mothers and thus the military Yuri Gagarin, they participated in the Andrei Malakhov show on Russian television. There, one of the mothers told how she and her children hid from shelling in the basement of her house.