Ilya Perezhogin

He was just playing football at the school stadium when an enemy missile hit it. The Russian occupiers took the life of 15-year-old Ilya Perezhogin.

He was born and grown up in Mariupol. There he studied in the 10th grade at local school № 9 and has been fond of football since childhood. Like his father, he planned to connect his future with the maritime industry, but the war destroyed all his plans.

Ilya met the beginning of the full-scale invasion in his hometown, which was being mercilessly shelled by the occupiers with the heaviest weapons. On March 2, 2022, when the sounds of the cannonade seemed to have gone away, the young man and his friends decided to play football at the school stadium. School headteacher was watching them from the windows of the school. Suddenly, her husband shouted: “Fall down!”. After several explosions, they immediately ran to the stadium to the children, but there was already a bloody jacket lying there…

Father took 15-year-old Ilya to the hospital, but unfortunately, doctors could not save him… Because of the severe frosts that prevented a proper burial, the pathologist persuaded father not to take the boy’s body so that the dogs would not dig up the remains. But a few days later, a shell hit the morgue and it wasn`t possible to take the bodies…