Not everyone in Vlad’s family can stand to return to their own apartment nearby. There was still no gas, no electricity, no running water. Upstairs, in a neighbor’s apartment where Vlad’s father for now has merged his family with that of the neighbor to help manage their collection of children, Vlad curled up on a bed with another boy and played cards. WATCH: Western nations impose new sanctions on Russia in response to atrocities in Ukraine “We hugged him, kissed him.” She tried to play chess and the boy let her win. “We covered his ears,” said Polina Shymanska of her 7-year-old great-grandson Nikita. Their parents, taking in the feeble warmth of spring after weeks in freezing basements, reflected on how they tried to protect the children. Bundled up in winter coats, they kicked a football, wandered around with bags of snacks handed out by visiting volunteers, called out from a glass-less window above. It is here that Bucha’s fragile renewal can be seen.Ī small group of neighborhood children gathered, finding distraction from the war.
Under it, a wooden box once used for ammunition held a teddy bear and other toys. The booms of de-mining operations were so strong they set off car alarms.Īt the apartment block where Vlad, his older brother Vova and sister Sophia live, someone had spray-painted “CHILDREN” in child-high letters on an outside wall. In a nearby playground, white and red tape marked off unexploded ordnance. Casings of used artillery shells were left along a fence in the yard. Steps away from Vlad’s home, some of the Russians used a kindergarten as a base, leaving it intact while other nearby buildings suffered. It appeared to be connected to fishing wire - a possible booby trap in the most vulnerable of places. On a ledge near the camp entrance, Russian soldiers placed a toy tank. The Russians used a children’s camp in Bucha as an execution ground, and bloodstains and bullet holes mark a basement. The many bright playgrounds in the once popular community with good schools on a far edge of the capital, Kyiv, are empty.
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They, much like their town, barely know how to move on.īucha witnessed some of the ghastliest scenes of Russia’s invasion, and almost no children have been seen in its silent streets since then. The family still doesn’t know what illness caused her death.
Amid the stress of war, his mother barely ate. The boy also visits the grave, placing on it a juice box and two cans of baked beans. READ MORE: Amid horror in Bucha, Russia relies on propaganda and disinformation “Hi, how are you?” he said during the visit last week. He reached out and touched the dirt near his wife Maryna’s feet. Now Russian forces have withdrawn from Bucha after a monthlong occupation, and Vlad’s father, Ivan Drahun, dropped to his knees at the foot of the grave. Six-year-old Vlad watched as his mother was carried out of the shelter last month and to the yard of a nearby home. In a darkened basement under a building shaking from the bombardment of war, there were few other options. BUCHA, Ukraine (AP) - The coffin was made from pieces of a closet.
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