J. Edes Times, when a new load of ammunition flies from the “neighboring country” towards Odessa, I think about children. You hear air defense, then the explosions are the first, second, third … And I can imagine how my children react to this shelling. My daughter would probably call loudly: “I’m afraid, dad!” While my son said something like that: “Now we all have to die.”
Fortunately, this happens only in my imagination. With every fire, I would like to thank the fate that my children are in another country where there is no war. But when I leave the house in the morning, I see the children who stayed here in the war. We say: “There are no foreign children.”
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Freenser journalist and local producer from the Ukrainian port city of Odessa. From the very beginning of a major Russian offensive in Ukraine, he accompanied foreign journalists, including in the front zones.
When I see them, I know that they probably trembled and shouted in the corridor or basement at night. That they already have psychological problems and sleep disturbances. And maybe until the end of his life. Then it is difficult to restrain tears. Cities such as Cheson, Struis or Nikopol are especially bad, where the fire almost never stops while the children play on the street.
With the invasion of February 24, 2022, a large Russian attack began in Ukraine. The annexation of Crimea took place in March 2014, and shortly after that the conflict erupted in the eastern Ukrainian regions.
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You would like to scream your parents: “Take your children, and then nothing has passed!” Although you know that they will not go. Because where should you go? Fathers in the army. Mothers could even disappear, but they returned for a long time, because they could not get used to life abroad. And in Ukraine it is still shot everywhere, as they said. That is why they returned to cities near the front, at home, with their children.
Lessons for survival
Children no longer know any other life. With a little success, you will learn at the cellars or metro stations. Otherwise, there is only online lessons with a bad network in the bunker. To do this, you will find out how the flying rocket sounds, where you should run when the drone fire should work and how to create wounded wounded. This helps them survive, it makes them more disciplined and … quieter. Because every loud noise is perceived as a shelling, so children are afraid of planes and fireworks even in safe countries.
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And they constantly enter the war. In childhood, we sometimes did this, there were “ours” and “fascists”. For Ukrainian children today there are “ours” and “Russians”. Regardless of what language you speak yourself.
Elderly young people revolve around the school. Graduates dancing their traditional final video in the ruins of their school, destroyed by a Russian rocket. A relatively large number of graduates strive for training places in other European countries. Most of them are unlikely to return home after that, because they do not want to constantly live under a constant shot or run in the basement.
Why will I tell all this? Just so that you do not forget to kiss your child and hug hands. I hope you have this option.
From Russian Gabi Koldyui
