MOSTYSKA, Ukraine (AP) — Russia’s invasion has displaced half of Ukraine’s children. On a hospital bed in a town close to the border with Poland, a little girl with a long blonde braid and dressed in pink is one of them.
To get there, Zlata Moiseinko survived a chronic heart condition, daily bombings, days of sheltering in a damp and chilly basement and nights of sleeping in a freezing car. The fragile 10-year-old became so unsettled that her father risked his life to return to their ninth-floor apartment 60 miles (90 kilometers) south of the capital, Kyiv, to rescue her pet hamster, Lola, to comfort her.
The animal now rests in a small cage beside Zlata’s bed in a schoolhouse that has been converted into a field hospital operated by Israeli medical workers. The girl and her family hope to join friends in Germany if they can arrange the paperwork that allows her father to cross the border with them.
“I want peace for all Ukraine,” the little girl said, shyly.
The United Nations children’s agency says half of the country’s children, or 4.3 million of an estimated 7.5 million, have now fled their homes, including about 1.8 million refugees who have left the country.
The children are everywhere, curled up amid suitcases in train stations, humanitarian aid tents, evacuation convoys. It is one of the largest such displacements since World War II.
Zlata’s mother, Natalia, folded her hands in prayer and was close to tears. Thursday marks a month of war and already she can hardly take any more.
“I ask for help for our children and the elderly, “ the mother said.
She recalled the escape from their community of Bila Tserkva that put her daughter’s life in peril beyond the ever-present threat of airstrikes.
As Russian planes pounded overhead, aiming for the local military base, the family decided to run. They found shelter for a week in a cold, damp basement in a village. The girl’s family struggled to keep her calm and attended, since her heart condition requires constant care.
“We gave her medication to calm her down,” her mother said. But it was not enough. Every loud sound was jarring. The family had few options, without friends and family to call on for help along the road west towards Poland and safety. Eventually they tried to shelter with an acquaintance of the girl’s grandmother, Nadia, but the sounds of airplanes and air raid sirens followed them.
On the final drive to the border, Zlata and her family slept in their car in freezing weather. At the border, amid confusion over documents and the girl’s father, they were turned back. Ukraine is not allowing men between 18 and 60 to leave the country in case they’re called to fight, with few exceptions.
It was by chance that the family heard about the Israeli field hospital in the Ukrainian border town of Mostyska. Now they are regrouping in relative comfort, without the scream of sirens.
At times, to fill the silence, Zlata plays the piano at the school. She missed playing while the family was on the run, her mother said. She proudly showed off her daughter’s YouTube channel of performances. The most recent video, however, showed their basement hideout instead. As the shaking camera panned to show a bare light bulb and concrete walls, the mother narrated in a whisper.
“All we have is potatoes and a few blankets,” she said in the recording. “I hope we won’t stay here long.”
For now, until the family moves again, there is some peace. A drawing by Zlata has been tacked up in the hallway. On a nearby bed, a stuffed panda and a doll have been placed in a toy embrace.
The girl has been transformed. She arrived at the field hospital severely dehydrated, said one of the Israeli physicians, Dr. Michael Segal, who was born in Kyiv and who has been moved by the stories he hears from back home.
“It’s very close to my heart,” Segal said of Ukraine. People have lost everything “in one brief moment.”
Zlata’s family “came here crying, not knowing what to do,” he added.
The medical staff stepped in and even treated her hamster, her first-ever pet, doctors said.
And reminded of that, the girl’s exhausted mother smiled.
“That hamster’s the superstar of the clinic,” she said. “It had been over-stressed, too.”
Ukraine refugees’ hopes of return wane after a month of war
MEDYKA, Poland (AP) — As Russia launched its war in Ukraine last month, exhausted and frightened refugees streamed into neighboring countries. They carried whatever they could quickly grab. Many cried. They still do.
The United Nations says that more than 3.6 million people have fled Ukraine since the war started exactly one month ago Thursday, in the biggest movement of people in Europe since World War II. Most believed they would soon be back home. That hope is waning now.
“At the beginning, we thought that this would end pretty soon,” said Olha Homienko, a 50-year-old woman from Kharkiv. “First of all, nobody could believe Russia would attack us, and we thought that it would end quickly.”
Now, Homienko said, “as we can see, there is nothing to look forward to.”
Homienko’s hometown is among several cities and towns that have been encircled and shelled heavily by the Russians. Refugees coming from besieged towns have told of destruction, death and hunger.
Natalia Lutsenko, from the bombed-out northern town of Chernihiv, said she still thought the Russian invasion must be some kind of “misunderstanding.”
Lutsenko said she couldn’t see why Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to make Ukrainians suffer so much.
“Why is he bombing peaceful homes? Why there are so many victims, blood, and killed children, body parts everywhere?” Lutsenko pleaded. “It is horrible. Sleepless nights. Parents are crying, there are no children any more.”
After fleeing her home, Lutsenko came to Medyka, a small town on the border between Ukraine and Poland where refugees have been coming since the start of the invasion.
Medyka Mayor Marek Iwasieczko clearly remembers Feb. 24, the first day of the war.
“That day was a big surprise for me. Suddenly (a) huge number of people appeared in Medyka,” Iwasieczko recalled. “They came terribly exhausted, it was still cold, they were freezing.”
Though Medyka authorities had prepared some facilities in advance, the town was still overwhelmed with the thousands of people arriving at the same time and needing shelter, food, medicines — and, most of all, warmth and comfort.
Iwasieczko also said everyone had believed to the last moment that war could be avoided.
“Everything was prepared, even though we were not sure whether all this would be necessary,” he said. A month later, “we are dreaming about the stabilization and the end of this situation … We are tired but we are going to help until the end.”
In Przemysl, another Polish town where refugees arrive by train, 66-year-old Nelya Kot from Chernihiv said she remembers waking to the sound of air raid sirens and explosions when the war started on Feb. 24.
“I thought maybe it was a drill, but then realized that … you wouldn’t hear explosions,” she said. “At that moment my daughter called and said ‘Mom, Russia has attacked us.’”
One month later, Kot added, people in Chernihiv are drinking river water to survive. Her nephew was killed while waiting for bread, and devastation is everywhere, she said.
“Today, there is no water, no gas, no electricity (in Chernihiv),” Kot gasped. “People are in total isolation, they drink water from the Desna river.”
To ease the strain on its member states accepting refugees, the European Union announced moves Wednesday to help them assist the millions of refugees in accessing schools for their children, health care, accommodation and work.
The measures also aim to facilitate the movement of refugees between countries that can house them in the EU and other countries such as Canada and the United Kingdom, which already have large Ukrainian communities.
Mostly women and children — Ukrainian men aged 18-60 have been banned from leaving the country and stay to fight — the refugees have sought to rebuild their lives in neighboring countries, seek jobs and start school. Some have moved on other nations where they have relatives.
Maria Tykha, a 29-year-old refugee from Kharkiv, still doesn’t know what he will do next. After arriving Thursday at Przemysl by train, she said “I just can’t believe that it is possible in the 21st century.”
In Medyka, the refugees are still arriving, though in smaller numbers and in warmer weather. On Wednesday, children could be seen clutching their favorite toys, women carrying babies and people arriving with their dogs.
Volunteers on Thursday sought to go beyond just offering safety and immediate help — the Dream Doctors organization from Israel brought in clowns for the children, while Humane Society International distributed pet food.
The United Nations children’s agency says half of Ukraine’s children — 4.3 million from an estimated 7.5 million — have now fled their homes, including 1.8 million who have left the country.
Lutsenko was sitting on her bed in a sports hall that has been turned into a refugee center, with dozens of beds lined up in one central area. She too had thought the war would be over in just a few days.
“Nobody thought it would last this long, for a month.,” she said. ” I believe that Ukraine will win and I believe in our army. I still believe.”
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David Keyton reported from Przemysl.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine