Ukrainian Teen Gives Harrowing Account of Watching His Mother Die in a Fire to CNN’s John Berman

CNN’s John Berman held a somber and emotional interview with a young Ukrainian man who watched his mother die while he and his family were escaping Russia’s attack on Chernihiv.

Berman spoke to Andriy, a 15-year-old boy who was recovering at a children’s hospital in Lviv after he an his family drove over what Andriy suspects was a landmine. Andriy recalled, with the assistance of a translator, that he was fleeing Chernihiv in a car with his family when he heard an explosion.

“I just remember I woke up in the road,” Andriy said. “I see the broken car and…my mother was still alive while she was on fire.”

“I started crawling away from the road and then I felt a pain in my left clavicle,” Andriy said. “I feel blood in my left ear. Then I hear shooting, from weapons or rockets or something. And I cling to stairs and hide.”

Andriy recalled how he was screaming because he couldn’t walk, and some people eventually found him and took him into a house. Berman asked Andriy where was his mother, and he told him “She died at the location, and she was still alive when her clothes caught fire, and she just burned.”

Andriy told Berman of his father’s emotional devastation, and how he was still processing his mother’s death while recovering from his injuries. When Berman asked him to talk about his mother, Andriy started crying before he composed himself and said, “My mother was a very beautiful woman. She liked things to be tidy and clean, and me and my father always supported her. But now, it is very difficult without Mother.”

Berman told Andriy he was sorry for his loss before asking the young man what he will do now, and whether he will ever go back to Chernihiv. Andriy also played Berman a song on his guitar after telling the CNN anchor that he still wants to play music and get some emotional distance from everything that has happened.

“I hope you live a long and meaningful life, and I’m glad you made it through this,” Berman told Andriy at the end of the interview. “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through.”

“He’s the same age as my sons,” Berman added as he reflected on the interview with Brianna Keilar. “And to see what he’s been through, it’s just heartbreaking to see that, and you can see how hurt he is. Obviously the loss of his mother, obviously taking care — in some ways emotionally — of his father, but just coming to grips with what’s happened to his home and his country, you can see how hard it is for that. He told me, you know, I was supposed to be playing with my band at a concert right now. Instead I’m here.”

Watch above, via CNN.