As the war rages on in Ukraine, some children stay close to the front lines: #war #raging #Ukraine #children #remain #front #lines Welcome to OLASMEDIA TV NEWSThis is what we have for you today:
The children flicker like ghosts on the empty playgrounds in weedy courtyards deep in a city whose inhabitants must now leave.
Six-year-old Tania no longer has any playmates in her street in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk. She sits on a bench just steps from the train station in the city that was attacked by Russia in April, killing more than 50 people who had gathered there to evacuate. The remains of a missile from that attack bore the inscription in Russian: “For the children.”
Tania and her parents are not afraid to stay. In the shadows of the now-closed station, they enjoy the silence that remains between the blasts of outgoing artillery trying to keep the Russian troops out.
“The bombs are falling all over the country. There’s no point in escaping,’ said Tania’s father, Oleksandr Rokytianskyi.
Talking to herself with a lavish box of colored markers, Tania added, “Bang, bang!”
The playground of an abandoned school, in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 14, 2022.
Nariman El-Mofty/AP
It is not uncommon for elderly residents of eastern Ukraine to refuse calls to evacuate to safer places elsewhere in the country. What is shocking, however, is to see children – even a stroller – near the front lines. It is not known how many are left as the Russians continue their offensive in the region.
Children cannot flee the war, even in cities that are considered safe. Tania’s parents spoke on the day a Russian missile hit Vinnytsia far from the front in central Ukraine, killing 23 people, including three children: a 4-year-old girl named Liza Dmytrieva and two boys, ages 7 and 8.
Children who stay close to the fights are connected to that of their parents, and the dangers can be unexpected.
Outside a hospital, 18-year-old Sasha is smoking with a 15-year-old friend. Sasha’s right arm is bandaged, and he’s staring at the world with blackened eyes. He has scratches all over after being struck by one of the military vehicles roaring through the region while crossing the street.
The Ukrainian soldiers helped him find an ambulance, he said, his speech disorder from his injuries.
Sasha doesn’t know why he still lives here. His mother decided that the family would not leave. Like some in eastern Ukraine, he has not shared his last name out of concern for his safety.
“I’d rather stay because I have friends here,” he said, noting that if he had small children, he would take them out.
A girl runs in a park playground as air strikes go off, in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 14, 2022.
Nariman El-Mofty/AP
In the four-bed hospital room that Sasha shares with other patients, an elderly man named Volodymyr has his right hand bandaged thickly. He said he was in his yard in a village near Bakhmut when cluster bombs exploded.
His family, including his 15-year-old child, plans to stay.
But “the little ones need to be evacuated,” Volodymyr said. “The little ones, they haven’t seen much in life.”
Maksym, a wounded soldier recovering from a concussion sustained during shelling, agreed.
For the first time since the Russian invasion of February 24, he has left the trenches in the forest and can call his teenage daughter, who is safe in the southern city of Zaporizhzhya, a few hours’ drive away.
This is also Maksym’s first chance to see what passes for normal life in Ukraine in nearly six months, and he is surprised to see children still so close to the fighting.
“They’re children,” he said, with the same gruff he uses to call the whole war “nonsense.”
Children play in a park as air strikes go off, in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 14, 2022.
Nariman El-Mofty/AP
dr. Vitalii Malanchuk said a “rather high” number of children are patients in the hospital. He finds it uncomfortable that some people who should evacuate see his presence as a comforting reason to stay.
As the latest air raid siren blares on a Kramatorsk playground and the artillery blasts, a girl in pigtails screams and runs away from the determined pursuit of a little boy. A small merry-go-round turns.
Dmytro and Karyna Ponomarenko are waiting for their daughter, the almost 5-year-old Anhelina, along with her pink bicycle with training wheels.
There are no safe places, they said, and Kramatorsk is at home. They find it hard to leave and expensive to start over elsewhere. Some residents who left are now returning, they said, preferring to take their risk.
They will stay as long as possible, even if the Russians get closer.
“She’s used to the sirens, but the explosions still bother her,” Dmtryo said of Anhelina. They tell her there is a thunderstorm, but somehow she has learned to be afraid of planes, even Ukrainian ones.
Parents Dmytro Roslyakov and Karyna Ponomarenko sit with their daughter, 5-year-old Anhelina, in a playground as air strikes go off in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, Thursday, July 14, 2022.
Nariman El-Mofty/AP
There are fewer children to play with by the day, but Anhelina is enjoying herself, her father said.
“Hyperactive,” he added with a weary affection.
As night falls, the family leaves, walking past the statue of a tank that now outnumbers the real one on the street.
Shadows run across the cracked concrete square. The air raid siren is still ringing.