Six-year-old Vlad watched his mother being transported from the shelter last month to the yard of a nearby house. The burial became hasty and destructive.
Russian forces have now withdrawn from Bucha after a month-long occupation, and Vlad’s father, Ivan Drahun, fell to his knees at the foot of the tomb.
He reached out and touched the ground near Marina’s wife’s feet. “Hi how are you?” he said during a visit last week. “I miss you so much. You left so soon. You didn’t even say goodbye.”
The boy also visits the tomb, placing on it a box of juices and two boxes of beans. Amid the stress of the war, his mother was barely eating. The family still does not know what illness caused her death. They, like their city, hardly know how to proceed.
Bukha saw some of the most horrific scenes of the Russian invasion and since then almost no child has been seen in its silent streets. The many bright playgrounds in the once popular community with good schools on a remote tip of the capital, Kyiv, are empty.
The Russians used a children’s camp in Bucha as a place of execution, and bloodstains and bullet holes mark a basement. On a ledge near the entrance to the camp, Russian soldiers placed a toy chariot. It seemed to be attached to a fishing line – a potential trap with explosions in the most vulnerable places.
A few steps away from Vlad’s house, some of the Russians used a kindergarten as a base, leaving it intact while other nearby buildings suffered. Shells of used artillery shells were left along a fence in the yard. At a nearby playground, white and bureaucracy were marked by unexploded ordnance. The demining operation blast was so powerful that it triggered a car alarm.
In the apartment building where Vlad, Vova’s older brother and his sister Sophia live, someone had spray-painted “CHILDREN” in high letters on an exterior wall. Beneath it, a wooden box once used for ammunition held a teddy bear and other toys.
Here is the fragile renewal of Bucha.
A small group of children from the neighborhood gathered, finding distraction from the war. Gathered in winter coats, they kicked a football, wandered through snack bags shared by visiting volunteers, shouting from a glassless window above.
Their parents, enjoying the faint warmth of spring after weeks in icy basements, thought about how they tried to protect their children. “We covered his ears,” Polina Shymanska said of Nikita’s 7-year-old great-grandson. “We hugged him, we kissed him.” She tried to play chess and the boy let her win.
Upstairs, in a neighbor’s apartment where Vlad’s father has now reunited with his neighbor’s family to help manage their children’s collection, Vlad curled up on a bed with another boy and played cards. The radiator did not emit heat. There was still no gas, no electricity, no running water.
Not everyone in Vlad’s family can afford to return to their own apartment nearby. Maryna’s memories are everywhere, from the perfume bottles on the table by the front door to the quiet kitchen.
In the living room time has stopped. Loose balloons hung from the light above his head. A series of colorful flags were still hanging on the wall, along with a family photo. He showed Ivan and Marina holding Vlad on the day he was born. They celebrated his birthday on February 19.
Five days later the war began. And the family life shrank in a damp concrete half room in the basement, lined with blankets and strewn with sweets and toys. It was very, very cold, Ivan remembers. He and Marina did everything they could to stifle the sounds of bombing for Vlad and keep him quiet. But they were also afraid.
Two weeks ago, Ivan took Vlad to the makeshift toilet at the shelter and visited the neighbors. Then he came to Marina to tell her he was going out. “I touched her shoulder and she was cold,” he said. “I realized he was gone.”
At first, he said, Vlad did not seem to understand what had happened. The boy said his mother had left. But at the burial, the boy saw Ivan kneeling and crying and now he knows what death is.
Death is inseparable from Bouha. Local authorities told the Associated Press that at least 16 children were among the hundreds killed. Survivors face a long recovery.
“They have realized that now it is calm and quiet,” Ivan said. “But at the same time, older children are realizing that this is not the end. The war is not over. “And it’s hard to explain to the little ones that the war is still going on.”
The children are adjusting, he said. They have seen a lot. Some even saw dogs being killed.
Now the war has slipped into the games they play.
On a sandy beach outside the kindergarten, Vlad and a friend were “bombarded” with sand punches.
“I am Ukraine,” said one. “No, I’m Ukrainian,” said the other.
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