By Margaryta Chornokondratenko and Yurii Kovalenko
BUCHA, Ukraine (Reuters) – On her way to hospital to give birth to her fourth child nearly three years ago, Ukrainian Liudmyla Rodchenko said she saw the bodies of civilians strewn along the street covered by blankets.
A day after Yevhen Stepanenko was born, a Russian tank was parked outside the clinic – kept running at the time by a diesel generator and water supplied from two fire trucks parked nearby.
Rodchenko, 42, soon wrapped her newborn son in a blanket and fled with him and her other children to the relative safety of the central Poltava region as invading Russian forces took over her home town of Bucha, just outside the capital Kyiv.
“We weren’t sure what the next one or two or three hours would bring, let alone the next day,” Rodchenko told Reuters in her house in Bucha, recalling the events around the birth.
“He was just three days old when he went through such a difficult trip; he was all wrapped in blankets, you couldn’t even see his face. He went through cold and frost.”
Rodchenko remembers having to collect hot water from troops at checkpoints to make baby formula for him.
Yevhen, or Zhenia as his mother affectionately calls him, is one of thousands of children born into Ukraine’s full-scale war, a conflict nearing its 1,000th day that has presented challenges that few young families could imagine.
In the initial panic of the invasion, Rodchenko and her children managed to escape Bucha.
The town was to become synonymous with Russian brutality when, weeks later, the corpses of dozens of civilians were discovered by the road, some apparently executed. Moscow denies killing civilians and has said the scenes in Bucha were staged.
As the reality of war gradually set in, Rodchenko, like other Ukrainians, has sought some sense of normality.
“I’m trying to make sure he has a normal childhood, not focusing his attention on air raid sirens,” she said, referring to almost daily warnings across Ukraine of incoming Russian drones and missiles.
“But when I get air raid notifications on my phone, he says: ‘Mommy, I’m scared, I’m scared.’ When the all-clear sounds, he says: ‘Cleared!’, although I think he does not fully understand what it means.”
LOOKING FOR PROTECTION
Rodchenko fears the fighting could last for years. Russia is capturing territory village by village in the east, and with Donald Trump soon to be in the White House, Ukrainians fear they may lose their most important ally in the war.
“I…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at All News…
