Devastating scenes following the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Video /
BNO News / New York Times / Ukraine in Action / NEXTA / Joe Truzman / Igor Girkin
What has war looked like for the children of Ukraine?
For many, it has meant sheltering in basements and subway stations while Russian forces attack cities and street fights rage. For others, it has meant a scramble to escape, leaving homes and fathers, taking trains and buses or walking formiles with their families in hopes of crossing into a safer country.
Some children have been killed or injured in the conflict. One 6-year-old girl in the southern city of Mariupol was hit during shelling. She was raced to the hospital in an ambulance but died as her parents, nurses and doctors wept.
Babies were born into a world of tumult. At the Okhmadet childrens hospital in the middle of the capital, tiny twin newborn brothers were swaddled in blankets on the basement floor. Across the country, in Mariupol, Kateryna Suharokova gave birth to a son, Makar, in the basement of a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward and used as a bomb shelter.
Oncology patients hold up sheets of paper with the words "Stop War" in a basement used as a bomb shelter at the Okhmadet children's hospital in central Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
A girl catches snowflakes as she waits with others to board a train to Poland, at Lviv railway station. Photo / AP
Newborn twin brothers sleep in a basement used as a bomb shelter at the Okhmadet children's hospital in central Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Medics perform CPR on a girl at the city hospital of Mariupol, who was injured during shelling in a residential area in eastern Ukraine. Photo / AP
Children too young to understand the reasons and history of the conflict with Russia still saw it come home. One 3-year-old boy in Kyiv stared quietly at the open casket at the funeral of a Ukrainian soldier.
Serafim, 3, looks at the body of Ukrainian Army captain Anton Sydorov, 35, killed in eastern Ukraine, during his funeral, in Kyiv, Ukraine. Photo / AP
A girl paints on a note book next to her mother as they shelter in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Kateryna Suharokova kisses her newborn son Makar in the basement of a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward and used as a bomb shelter in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo / AP
Anastasia Manha, 23, lulls her 2-month-old son Mykyta, where she lives with her family members, after shelling by separatists forces in Novognativka, eastern Ukraine. Photo / AP
And at the cancer hospital, young patients in the basement held up signs in English for a visiting photographer: "Stop War."
Children who fled the conflict from neighboring Ukraine play on the floor of an event hall in a hotel offering shelter in Siret, Romania. Photo / AP
People sleep in the improvised bomb shelter in a sports center, which can accommodate up to 2000 people, in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo / AP
The lifeless body of a girl killed during the shelling of a residential area lies on a medical cart at the city hospital of Mariupol, eastern Ukraine. Photo / AP
Across Ukraine and in refugee shelters across the borders, parents have struggled to comfort their children. Mothers rock them on subway platforms or carry them for miles in the cold. They find diversions for nights spent underground — books, toys, phones, pets. At one border station in Poland, refugees were met by boxes of donated clothes and toys.
