A GRIEVING Ukrainian father has been killed after joining the army to avenge the death of his family.
Yuriy Glodan's entire family was wiped out in a Russian missile strike on their apartment block back in April last year.
The savage attack on Odessa from Tu-95 strategic bomber strike claimed the lives of Glodan's three month old daughter Kira, his wife Valeria, 27, and her mother Liudmila Yavkina, 53.
Now a year and a half later the bereft father, 31, a pastry chef and baker, has been killed in action after fighting for Ukraine’s 3rd Independent Assault Brigade.
His body was identified by the crucifix he wore, say reports.
Glodan said after his family was killed: "Putin is the terrorist, and Russia is a terrorist-state, a murderer.
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“Parents should not bury their children.
“This is a big human grief.
“We must instead enjoy life, raise our children, rejoice in the sun, the people, people must not die…"
Reports of the strike – at Orthodox Easter – and his appalling loss were seen around the world.
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"I cried with happiness when our daughter was born,” he told journalists.
“And now it’s hard for me to realise that my daughter is no more.”
A heartbreaking video showed him hugging mourners at the joint funeral for his family.
Glodan had dodged the deadly strike on the 16-floor residential tower because he had gone to a grocery shop.
Later he joined the army to defend Ukraine against Russian invaders who slaughtered his family.
The head of the Odessa Regional Military Administration, Oleg Kiper, has now announced Glodan’s death.
Every Odessan resident knew the devastating loss Glodan experienced when the "Russian world" came to his family, wrote Alexander Yakovenko, co-owner of the Make My Cake project, in which Glodan had worked as a baker.
He said: "Today I learned that he died defending his country.”
The exact circumstances of his loss on the battlefield are not clear, but his remains were identified by the cross he was known to wear.
After last year’s strike on the Russian-speaking family’s apartment block, the mayor of Odessa, Gennadiy Trukhanov, said in front of the blitzed building: “Behind my back is what the [Russian] occupiers name ‘a military object’.
“What they hit today with their high-precision weapon, this is what they call a military object.
“Eight people were killed, one of them a three-month-old baby girl, a resident of Odessa, who wasn’t given a chance to see life.
“Scumbags you are, may you burn in hell.”
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “The world has not seen such barbarism in 80 years.”
Ukrainian authorities then reported that the Russian military had launched several missiles at Odessa from the Caspian Sea.
After the attack, the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that their missiles disabled a military object where "a large batch of foreign weapons received from the United States and European countries was stored."
Overnight there were new Russian strikes on Odessa, a regular Russian target in the war.
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Putin's forces struck the city with four different types of missile – Onyx, Iskander-M, Kh-31P and Kh-59.
Eight people were wounded and a museum was among the buildings damaged.
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