On the day Russian troops invaded Ukraine, 18-year-old Alexander Ivanov was shot in the forehead and 10 times in the chest while in the passenger seat of his grandmother’s car. They traveled to Hostomel, outside of Kyiv, to pick up his grandfather and take him to the capital.
Alexander, known as Sasha, did not have the life of an ordinary 18-year-old. His mother Sveta was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy when Sasha was three years old. Sasha had spent his life caring for her, helping her get dressed, wash, and go to the bathroom.
According to his family, Sasha had a natural love of learning. Ever since he began to speak, he loved to recite poetry. At the age of seven, he asked if he could learn to play the piano. Although he graduated from music school with honors, he decided to study medicine. He achieved full marks in the national exams for high school in Ukraine in chemistry and biology and received a scholarship to the best medical school in Ukraine in Kyiv. Another university, Taras Shevchenko University, also in Kyiv, called his mother to complain when they heard he would not come to them.
Sasha planned to become a neurosurgeon to help treat his mother’s illness, his family said. The shelves in Sasha’s bedroom in Kyiv are full of thick textbooks and encyclopedias. For his birthday last year, he asked for two books, Robert Brooker’s Genetics: Analysis and Principles and the British Medical Association’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary. His mother ordered them from abroad.
“He didn’t drink, smoke or go out at night. He was a total homemaker, “said Sveta, sitting in her wheelchair in Sasha’s bedroom. “He knew I needed help and would always run home after school to help me. When I was depressed or depressed because of my illness, he would lift me up and even give me massages.
“There are children who like football or wrestling. My child loved books, chess, and playing the piano, but no one ever made him study. But please don’t think he’s involved. He would plant potatoes with his grandmother, fix the roof with his grandfather, and change his cousin’s diapers. He was just, just a boy. “
Sasha’s favorite movies were the Hobbit and Bridget Jones trilogy, his mother said.
18-year-old Sasha, who was killed by the Russian military in Ukraine, plays the piano – video
When they celebrated Christmas at Sasha’s grandparents’ house in Hostomel last year, the Ivanov family could not imagine what 2022 would bring. In a video his mother recorded from her wheelchair on December 23, Sasha helped his hard-working four-year-old cousin decorate a tree at his grandparents’ house.
Less than a month later, in January, Valerie, Sasha’s grandfather, suffered a stroke and was taken to hospital. The left side of his body was paralyzed.
When Russia invaded on February 24, the hospital asked Valerie’s wife, Lilia, Sasha’s grandmother, to take him home. Despite her children’s advice to take him to Kyiv, she asked an ambulance to take him to their house in Hostomel, also home to a cargo airport that had been the site of several major attacks by Russian forces. “I thought it would be safer there,” Lilia said. “How should I know?”
As the fighting raged on the day of the invasion, Lilia decided she had to move to the World’s apartment in Kyiv. But she needed help: her husband weighed 18 stones. Lilia, 60, could not get him in the car alone.
She left for Kyiv early on the second day of the invasion to pick up Sasha. As they drove back through Hostomel, Russian snipers fired at their car from a children’s park. Lilia and other people interviewed by the Guardian who were in Hostomel said that Ukrainian troops were not in the city at the time and saw a Russian column.
“It was as if there was an explosion in the car. I saw that Sasha’s head fell to one side. Then I darkened. When I came to my senses and saw him, I just screamed, I didn’t know what to do, “said Lilia.
“I tried to support his head, but my arm was movable. I pedaled and we set off. They were still shooting at us again and again, and I felt like I was losing consciousness again. “
Lilia manages to walk another two miles before fainting behind the wheel from shrapnel wounds. A boy took to the streets and called an ambulance to take her to the nearest hospital in Bucha, a town near Hostomel, now famous for killing Russian civilians. There was nothing that could be done about Sasha.
At the hospital, Lilia regained consciousness and called Sveta. She told her that Sasha was dead and his body was lying in the car in Hostomel.
But the ordeal for Sasha’s family did not end there. His grandmother is now injured in a hospital in Bucha, and his paralyzed grandfather is alone at his grandparents’ house in Hostomel. Both places were under Russian occupation.
“I had to make a choice,” Sveta said through tears. “Pick up my parents or take my son’s body.” She chose her son.
“We have been told that bridges are being blown up and we must do it now,” she said. Sveta and Sasha’s father left for Hostomel, surrounded by the thunder of shells. They found their son’s body in the passenger seat of the car.
Eduard Lisovik, who was also later shot by a Russian sniper, came to help. The three lifted Sasha’s body into the family car. They went to the police station to report the death, but the police did not want to leave because the shelling was too strong. They had to try two morgues, because the first one wouldn’t accept the body without a police report.
The next day, Sasha was buried in Bucha’s cemetery. There were no cemetery workers. Sasha’s father, Lisovik, and the cemetery manager dug the hole themselves. Sveta, who could stand and walk for short periods, broke her leg as she mourned his open coffin.
“I put his Tom Ford glasses in the coffin, along with his scrubs,” Sveta said.
Sasha and a friend before they graduated from high school in the summer of 2021. Photo: provided
Lilia remained in Bucha’s three-story hospital for 20 days with terrified patients and doctors. When the shelling was bad, they moved to the corridors, where they lay on the floor. There was no running water, heating or electricity. “We just ate frozen dumplings that were cooked on the fire outside,” Lilia said. We had to get water from a well outside.
Eventually the generator was found. Despite several shrapnel wounds and a paralyzed arm, Lilia was one of the healthier patients, so she volunteered to help carry the generator up the stairs.
“The Russians came in once and asked if any of us were Russian citizens or if any of us were Ukrainian soldiers. We all said no, “said Lilia.
At one point, she wanted to walk to her husband, who was still in their family home, but doctors said she would not succeed because she was too weak.
An evacuation bus arrived three weeks later. “Our bus and 60 others entered Kyiv, but the Russians stopped us on the Zhytomyrska highway and started shooting at us. We were stuck in the buses for two and a half hours and planes were flying overhead. Then they let us go, “said Lilia.
Valerie, Sasha’s grandfather, was evacuated from his house in Hostomel in the family apartment in Kyiv on April 9. He had spent 44 days alone, half paralyzed, in the basement. A neighbor withstood the shelling to visit him once a day to feed him and help him go to the bathroom.
“I just wanted to stop,” said Valerie, who rose from the couch in the Kyiv apartment, hands clasped to his ears and sobbing. Lily tried to calm him down. Valya is gone, everything is fine.
Sveta said: “There are families who have not been affected by the war. But the war touched our family like nothing else. My mother is disabled, my father is disabled, I am disabled and I buried my son. “
Add Comment