Ukrainian boy badly burned in Russian attack returns to school, music and dance

Roman, 8, wounded by Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia last year, performs at a ballroom dance competition, with his face covered by a burn mask, after a year of skin grafts and over 30 surgeries, in Lviv, Ukraine December 2, 2023. REUTERS/Roman Baluk/File Photo

LVIV, Ukraine (Reuters) - Eight-year-old Roman Oleksiv is back at school in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, another step in an unlikely recovery from life-threatening burns and shrapnel to the head that he sustained in a Russian missile attack in July last year.

Roman was waiting to see a doctor with his mother when a cruise missile struck the central town of Vinnytsia, in one of the deadliest single attacks since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began early in 2022.