Russia-Ukraine War: the lives of children on the Ukrainian front, between fear and isolation

With her small silhouette at the edge of the road and surrounded by ruins, Lisa Shtanko chases the passage of Ukrainian soldiers, who always have some gift for girls who, like her, They live in the midst of the chaos of war.

Lisa is eight years old and has bright blue eyes. She lives with her parents in a house by the road at the entrance to Liman, a nearly destroyed town in eastern Ukraine surrounded by forests turned into minefields, where she is forbidden to venture.

The area has been retaken in October by Ukrainian forces, after four months of Russian occupation. But the war goes on, as he recalls the last morning bomb dropped near his house.

Dressed in a neon pink coat, Lisa has a cheerful tone of voice, which does not hide her feeling of shock. In her conversation she alternates between the gifts of the soldiers, the explosion that woke her up, her mother’s cooking and the shrapnel that pierced the front door.

The fears

“I’m not in a good mood today because of the bombing”the girl apologizes.

Viktor, her father, caresses her with his eyes.

“Of course he’s scared. There’s nothing more terrifying than the death that lurks around you,” says this 42-year-old electrician, who is going to give his daughter a toy donated by a charity for Christmas.

Those who still live in Limán do so in the basement of some destroyed buildings. there are almost no childrenand most of the remaining neighbors are elderly people.

And it is that many of the families who fled “have no reason to return,” says Kostia Korovkin, father of a six-year-old girl, Nastia, who is hiding behind him. The man says they have nowhere to go.

no friends to play with, Nastia spends her days between the cellar and the street, where she sometimes goes out with the neighborhood dogs. From time to time she even goes up to the sixth floor of the building, the only point where the internet is available, to be able to follow a lesson.

In Bakhmut the war does not lurk punctually, but strikes day and night.

This city is one of the key points of the front line in eastern Ukraine. Russian artillery shells it constantly, and Ukrainian soldiers fighting here describe it as “hell on earth”.

grow suddenly

“Hi, I’m Gleb.” At the back of a conditioned basement, where about twenty people have been living for eight months, a 14-year-old teenager with a serious face, very close-cropped hair and an earring, shakes hands firmly with the visitors.

He is the only minor; all the other children are gone.

His days are spent almost exclusively in the cellar.. He goes to bed late, helps the elderly and takes care of the black cat who has also taken refuge in this space, where the sound of explosions resounds.

“I learned to recognize incoming and outgoing shots,” says Gleb Petrov, whose biggest dream is “to go out for a walk with a friend.”

To kill time, draw pictures. “I don’t show them, but I like them”, He says. He also spends his time reading or playing on his cell phone when there is electricity.

“I don’t think about my future, because I don’t know what will happen in an hour or two, or tomorrow,” says the boy.

in bahmut Hundreds of children are still stranded since their parents are unable or unwilling to leave.

“These children have become adults,” says Katherine Soldatova, a charity volunteer who has set up a shelter in the basement of a school.

“I am in a permanent situation of insecurity. The world can betray them at any momenteverything can be destroyed in an instant,” explains psychologist Alona Yukianchuk, from the Ukrainian organization SOS Children’s village.

“The difficult thing is that their parents are also stressed and focused on survival,” she adds.

And that chronic stress”affects the ability to concentrate and cognitive resources”, and can cause even serious disturbances in the medium and long term, underlines the psychologist, who despite everything does not want to talk about a lost generation.

“I’ll try to be a little optimistic. There’s no safe place in Ukraine, but only a small percentage of children live on the frontline. They’ll need a follow-up, but I’m sure many will find the resources” to move forward. He says.

AFP agency

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