Ask any mother what is most important to her in the world, and I am sure you will hear the same answer: children. But this terrible war means death for children.
“Dead” and “children” – these two words refuse to stand side by side. As a mother, I know that they are impossible to even pronounce. It means broken hearts, broken families and broken destinies.
Now I must tell the world about Alice from Akhtyrka. She did not live to be eight years old. She died during the shelling of her city, along with her grandfather, who covered her with his body.
Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska wrote a letter to Russian mothers asking them to think about the impact of the invasion on Ukrainian children.
Alisa died in the hospital the day after Russian servicemen were wounded when they opened fire in the town of Okhtyrk.
I have to tell you about 18-month-old Kirill from Mariupol, who was taken to the hospital by his parents under fire, but where the doctors could not do anything to save him.
About Polina from Kyiv, who died in a shelling on the street along with her parents and brother. About 14-year-old Arseniy, who was hit in the head by a shell. Under heavy fire, the ambulance simply could not reach him, and he died from loss of blood.
I have other children that I can tell you about. Six-year-old Sofika and her 1.5-month-old brother, shot by the invaders along with their mother, grandparents, while trying to leave Novaya Kakhovka, on the banks of the Dnieper, in their car.
These names should not become statistics. Behind the figures unknown to you are the cruelly cut off lives of children.
Kateryna Dyachenko, 11, a rhythmic gymnast who performed in Ukraine before the war, was reportedly killed after a Russian missile hit her home in Mariupol.
At least 38 children were killed when I first spoke about them. Now, while I am writing, I have a photo of 11-year-old gymnast Katerina Dyachenko in front of me. Her house collapsed during shelling, making her the 135th Ukrainian child killed by Russia and its war of aggression.
In Lvov, 109 empty baby carriages were laid out in the middle of a quiet square in honor of the children killed by Putin. It was a terrible sight.
I was asked if I cry in war. Yes I. Recently I saw a grave in the yard of an ordinary residential complex. It had a homemade sign on it: “Mom. A son.’ Both gave their lives.
This is how the neighbors bury those who died under constant shelling in our cities of Mariupol, Bucha and Gostomel.
We realized in the first days of the war that Russia was killing civilians. That Russia is doing this so cynically and deliberately is still shocking. It is now safer for our children to be born in bomb shelters than in hospitals. After all, Russia is bombing maternity hospitals.
You have probably seen photos of the bombed-out maternity hospital in Mariupol and the bloodied women who became victims of this terrorist attack.
Oleg Fedko, 56 years old, Anna Fedko, 56 years old, Irina Fedko, 27 years old, Sofia, 6 years old (pictured) and Ivan, 2 months old – all died in the Kherson region.
There was enough cynicism in Russia to attribute this to a staging, a trick, because the photo is of a well-known blogger. And she just arrived there to give birth to a child. And she gave birth. But already in the conditions of the destroyed hospital.
Since the beginning of the war, 15,000 Ukrainian children have been born. Imagine – 15,000 children do not know what the world is. And instead of a peaceful sky, they see the concrete ceiling of a dark basement.
Recently, I was touched by a photo of my mother from Kyiv. When a rocket hit her apartment building, she covered her newborn daughter, shielding her from the debris with her body. Wounded by shrapnel, the media appropriately called the Kiev Madonna.
There are other children who, in addition to facing the horrors of this war, also suffer from serious illnesses. The bomb shelters have become oncology facilities for children with cancer.
Some of our little patients had only two or three doses of chemotherapy left when the war started. For them, everything was interrupted – and now their forecast looks bleak.
Polina, who was in her last year of elementary school in Kyiv, was killed when she, her brother, and her parents were shot dead by Russian troops while trying to flee Kyiv.
After my request for help, Ukraine is evacuating children with terminal illnesses or other serious illnesses to a safe place in Western Europe. They need to win their own victory, if only we, the parents, won a common victory for them.
Half of Ukrainian children have become “internally displaced persons” because of the war. Now you will see many of these children in your country, children with adult eyes, because they have seen death.
If you see such children and such mothers whose fathers remain here to protect the country, please help them to warm up again. Show them that there are safe places in the world and decent people: people who do not enjoy the pain of others.
What is happening in Ukraine is not only Putin’s crime. He is shouting orders. His soldiers are sent to kill – thousands of young men and men: the sons and fathers themselves. Their own will is suppressed.
Maxim, 6, his sister Alina, 13, and their mother Anna, 31, were shot while trying to flee Kyiv, his sister and mother survived, but he sadly died.
I asked the mothers of Russia: how do you feel about the fact that your sons are killing our children? That they throw bombs at them, shred them with mortars? No mother would want her child to become a child killer. Even for the generous rewards promised by Putin.
But so far I have heard only the deafening silence of the mothers of Russia. Are they scared or indifferent? I don’t even want to imagine, because I don’t know which is worse.
When people in Russia say that their troops do not harm the civilian population, I ask you to show them pictures of children abducted from us.
Show them the faces of Ukrainians who, having barely begun to breathe, are cruelly deprived of the opportunity to grow up.
How many more children must die to convince the Russian troops to cease fire? How many more children must be killed by Russian soldiers before their mothers oppose this war?
I ask you to remember and repeat this terrible truth: the Russian invaders are killing Ukrainian children. Tell that to Russian mothers so they know exactly what their sons are sent to do in Ukraine. Show these faces to Russian women – and remind them that their husbands, brothers, compatriots kill Ukrainian children – children just like theirs. Remind them that silence makes them complicit in these deaths.
Let me end on a different note. As a mother, I try to inspire my children. As the first lady of Ukraine, I hope to inspire the children of my country. But it is the children and mothers of Ukraine who inspire me. Let me tell you: they are incredible.
The other day, volunteers from the Ukrainian city of Beregovo on the border with Hungary helped a refugee from Mariupol cross the border to a safe place. Her name was Svetlana and she was a teacher. After several weeks of constant shelling in the basement of her house, this exhausted woman was carrying no less than four children. Only one of them was her own.
The second child was her sister’s son. Her sister ran out of the house in search of water and did not return. The third child belonged to neighbors who were also killed. The fourth was an orphan whom Svetlana picked up on the street when she ran to the evacuation buses.
Thanks to Svetlana, four Ukrainian children are alive.
That’s what a real mother is – and I bow to her.
n According to Kapil Komireddy, author of The Sinister Republic: A Brief History of the New India.