Sherhiy Perebyinis learned about the death of his wife and children in a Russian attack in Ukraine through social media.
Perebyinis, 43, saw on Twitter images captured by a photographer from The New York Times newspaper showing four people lying on the ground next to a World War II memorial outside Kiev.
They had been shot by Russian soldiers.
One of them was his wife, Tetiana, 43, and two were his children, Mykyta, 18, and Alisa, 9. Next to them was the body of Anatoly Berezhnyi, 26, a church volunteer.
The two family dogs also lost their lives.
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The incident occurred on Sunday as they tried to cross a damaged bridge in Irpin, outside Kiev, like thousands of other Ukrainians seeking to escape the fighting.
Russian troops fired mortar shells into the town, killing at least eight people, including Perebyinis's family.
“I recognized the luggage and that's why I knew about it,” he told The New York Times.
“I have lost the whole world and I have lost the meaning of life,” she added in statements to The Washington Post newspaper.
"I was left alone. We lived happily for 23 years," he lamented.
"We don't doubt it."
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Perebyinis was caring for her sick mother in eastern Ukraine.
Before the attack, he lamented in a call to his wife: "Forgive me because I couldn't defend you."
His wife told him, he says: "Don't worry, I'll get out of this."
The couple met in high school and began their relationship a couple of years later when they ran into each other on the dance floor of a nightclub.
They got married in 2001, they lived on the outskirts of Kiev with their children and their two dogs, Benz and Cake.
She was an accountant and he is a computer programmer.
[USA. warns Russia may use chemical weapons in covert operation in Ukraine]
The family had already been displaced by the 2014 Russian attack, as they lived in the Donetsk region, where Vladimir Putin's regime encouraged a separatist uprising.
To escape the fighting they moved to Kiev and began to rebuild their lives.
Thousands of civilians have lost their lives in the wake of the Russian invasion that began two weeks ago.
The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced last week that he will launch an investigation that could target Russian officials held responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
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Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday joined calls for an international investigation into war crimes against Russia, citing the "atrocities" of bombing civilians, including a children's hospital in Mariupol in which three people died, including , a girl.
"There absolutely needs to be an investigation, and we all need to be vigilant," Harris said.
"I have no doubt that the eyes of the world are on this war and what Russia has done in terms of this aggression and these atrocities," he added.