Five-year-old Anastasia Konchakovska wants to be held by her mother.

Lying in a hospital bed in Belarus recovering from surgery to remove a bullet fragment from her skull last month, Konchakovska spoke one word repeatedly: "Mama."

When she was told that her mother, Tetyana, was at work, the child said that couldn't be true because "she came and laid down with me."

Konchakovska must have been dreaming. That remembered interaction with her mother was no more true than the tall tale that she was at work.

Tetyana Konchakovska had been killed along with her husband and son on February 28, when their van was ambushed by invading Russian troops outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, according to Anastasia Mizetskaya, a relative who lives in the United States.

Anastasia Konchakovska survived the attack, as did her grandmother, Vasylyna Moshchenko. But the 5-year-old faces a tough physical and emotional recovery and may have permanent damage to her right eye.

Moshchenko has yet to tell her that her parents and half-brother are dead.

Konchakovska is one of the thousands of Ukrainian children who are suffering from incalculable trauma as a result of Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to invade Ukraine and the Russian military's treatment of civilians.

Thousands of civilians have been killed since Russia launched the large-scale offensive on February 24. Accurate casualty figures are elusive and the number of children who have lost one or both parents is unknown.