When I was leaving Boston this May to spend the summer break back home in Ukraine, I was certain that there would be opportunities for me to visit various Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv and Odesa. However, the Russian offensive severely intensified, making these trips far too dangerous. Even staying in Kyiv, which is typically considered a relatively safe city compared to other places in Ukraine due to its air defense systems, I experienced a few dire attacks.
One of the most horrifying days of the summer was July 8, when Russia attacked Ohmatdyt, the largest children’s hospitals in Ukraine, as well as an industrial facility which is only a 15-minute walk from my parents’ home in Kryvyi Rih. From early in the morning, it was clear that a new wave of attacks was approaching; The Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russia’s aerodromes had just launched multiple ballistic and cruise missiles into the air. A couple of hours after my boyfriend and I read the message about the military rockets, we heard a chain of window-shaking explosions. These explosions were followed by a power outage — the rockets had damaged power plants that supplied our energy. Two years into the war’s proliferation, we were accustomed to the lack of electricity, so we acted accordingly with the plan we worked out for outages. We met with a friend and drove around the city searching for cell reception, attempting to connect with our families to see if they were in danger. Reading the news about Ohmatdyt and other attack sites while simultaneously looking at clouds of smoke rising above Kyiv made me feel completely numb.
Five of the pediatric hospital’s buildings were damaged in the attack, including the toxicological building, which was damaged beyond restoration. At least one child died; he spent his final hours in critical condition in the emergency room. Moscow, as per usual, claimed that Russia did not attack the hospital, yet the video of a Russian cruise missile hitting the building, combined with fragments of said missile, serve as evidence of the opposite.
Okhmatdyt was not the only hospital attacked in Kyiv on July 8. Seven people were killed in a maternity ward on the left bank of the city. In the city of Kryvyi Rih, a missile destroyed the industrial building right in front of my dad’s former workplace — a hospital where he had been a physician for years. Since my dad and mom are both doctors, we know local families who work for the industrial plant and its facilities. On July 8, I heard that some of our acquaintances were killed, many while in the process of running to a nearby shelter. Among the casualties was a man whose two children my mom treats for colds and other illnesses.
In the last few weeks, even cities far from the frontlines of the war, such as Lviv, have suffered the blows of Russia’s offense. Russia’s imperialistic ambitions place everyone in Ukraine in constant danger, and if the country is not defeated, it will continue to pose a threat to the rest of Europe. Although there are fewer reports about the war in Ukraine in the news, the war is raging on, perhaps with more brutality than ever.
