A week has passed since the bombing of the Kramatorsk railway station.
At a hospital in the city of Dnipro, the doctors wanted to show us the cost of this war.
In the children’s ward we met three young Ukrainians. The first was Yana. The 10-year-old was at the train station with his mother last Friday, fleeing fighting east.
She lost her right leg below the knee, her left leg and her mother.
Photo: Yana lost her mother, as well as her right leg below the knee and her left leg
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In the next bed, Katarina is 12. Doctors saved her badly injured legs. However, she also lost her mother.
God knows their trauma, and understandably the doctors asked us not to show them their faces or interview them.
But then what else needs to be heard?
In the next room we met Andrei at 17. He was also at the station last week. His arm was amputated at the elbow.
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Photo: Doctors saved Katarina’s severely injured legs. The 12-year-old also lost her mother.
There were thousands of them as they tried to board trains in Kramatorsk to escape the danger further east when it was hit by a missile.
There is peace and quiet in the hospital, but it is not safe. The window glass has duct tape through it. Wooden palate is placed within the windows; preparation for everything that may follow.
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The Dnieper acts as a buffer for Ukraine
The city of Dnieper is separated by a huge river. He acts as a happy buffer for Ukraine against any Russian offensive from the east.
Driving around, it feels like a city on the edge. Air raid sirens are turned on several times each day.
Most often these are false alarms.
Image: The situation on the 50th day of the war in Ukraine
For now, the whole city is firmly under Ukrainian control. But this week, Russian missiles hit the city’s newly built international airport.
Block the sirens and the Dnieper feels like a place that was up before this war.
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Some of the old Soviet concrete apartment blocks have been repainted in bright colors.
There are new hotels, restaurants and a wonderful modern market for fresh food. That was and they pray, it is still a city with a future.
But stories of displaced people from the east who are now hosts have shaken them. Mariupol also had a future until weeks ago. Now this is an urban wasteland.
Image: The Dnieper branch of the Ukrainian Association of the Blind is a place that is now a refuge for anyone who needs it
Providing asylum for all
On the east side of the river is the Dnieper branch of the Ukrainian Association of the Blind, a place that is now a refuge for anyone who needs it.
Among them are three generations of a family from the Far East of the country.
Olga Polinicheva told me that they had spent 24 days underground in a bomb shelter. The bombs, she said, fell everywhere.
When the power went out, they had no choice but to leave.
Image: Larissa Barvina calls the place of refuge “paradise”
In the silence of the corridor we found Larisa Barvina from the city of Slavyansk.
She described this place as heaven and from the hell she escaped from, it certainly is.
“She had a whole range of feelings,” she told me. “In my arms, my legs, my ears. The vibrations of the bombs.”
This is the experience of the war for the blind.
Image: The Russians said they would head to the command centers
“Weapons, weapons, weapons”
In front of the mayor’s office we met with the mayor Boris Filatov. He did not stay in one place for long. The Russians said they would head to the command centers.
His office is not a military command center, but in Kharkov, in the northeast, the Russians hit administrative buildings. Mayor Filatov will not take any risks.
“We need three things: weapons, weapons, weapons,” he told me, echoing his president, Vladimir Zelensky.
Image: Mayor Boris Filatov says Ukraine needs “weapons, weapons, weapons”
Asked about President Biden’s new $ 800 million approval for new weapons, he said: “Yes – we are very happy and thank our Western friends, but Western aid is late, late and late.”
The challenges facing the Dnieper are enormous. Care for the wounded and displaced, but also preparation, as far as they can, for the coming days.
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