Dead Ukrainian Woman On NYT Front Page Worked For Palo Alto Firm

PALO ALTO, CA — A Palo Alto company confirmed Wednesday that its chief accountant and her family were photographed dead on a Ukrainian street while trying to flee Russian mortar fire. The images on the front page of the New York Times, which showed Ukrainian soldiers tending to bloodied bodies, shocked the world, and even prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to pledge to find and punish “every bastard responsible.”

“They were just trying to get out of town. To escape. The whole family,” Zelenskyy said in a video address. “How many such families have died in Ukraine?”

Palo Alto startup SE Ranking confirmed Wednesday in a statement that the woman in the photos is its chief accountant based in Kyiv, 43-year-old Tatiana Perebeinis, and her 18-year-old son Nikita and 9-year-old daughter Alise. Perebeinis and her children were killed by Russian mortar fire as they tried to escape via a partially destroyed bridge in Irpin, a Kyiv suburb, according to the company.

“We are devastated to say that yesterday our dear colleague and friend Tatiana Perebeinis, the chief accountant of SE Ranking, was killed together with her two kids by Russian mortar artillery,” the company wrote Monday. “The family was trying to evacuate from Irpin – a small city right near Kyiv that has been left without water supply, electricity, and heating. There are no words to describe our grief or to mend our pain. But for us, it is crucial to not let Tania and her kids Alise and Nikita remain just statistics. Her family became the victim of the unprovoked fire on civilians, which under any law is a crime against humanity.”

Company spokesperson Ksenia Khirvonina told the San Francisco Chronicle that Perebeinis was “a very friendly, brave, courageous woman with a great sense of humor; she always cheered everyone around her up; she was truly like a big sister to all of us.”

Khirvonina told The Chronicle that Perebeinis stayed in Irpin when the invasion started in order to care for her sick mother, and to stay with her 18-year-old son, who was not allowed to leave the country in case he needed to defend the country. When Irpin was surrounded, a bomb hit their apartment building, and initially they hid in the basement. The family tried to flee through Russia’s “safe passage,” but were hit.

Khirvonina also said that the company helped her husband Sergii arrive in Kyiv to plan his family’s funeral. He has since told The Chronicle that he “lost everyone and lost the meaning of life.”

Census data shows that Santa Clara County has 114,146 residents who report Ukrainian ancestry, according to Palo Alto Online. On Tuesday, dozens of Palo Alto residents gathered in a College Terrace park for a candlelight vigil to pray for peace, one of many such rallies held in the Bay Area since the start of the invasion. The Palo Alto-based Neighbors Abroad has also launched the Ukrainian Emergency Children’s Relief Fund to buy food, clothing, and basic supplies for Ukrainian refugees.

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Tech Worker At Palo Alto Company Killed While Fleeing Ukraine