“Just say thank you” is what many Ukrainians have already heard from occupying Russian soldiers. Svitlana Poltavska says this is what Russian soldiers told her as they came to her house amid beatings and searches: “Say thank you we are not touching your children. Yet.”
Svitlana Poltavska is from Troitske, a settlement in the Luhansk region, which sits right on the border with Russia.
When Moscow went on its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, her husband, a soldier of the State Border Guard Service, was sent to fight the invading forces and died in the first days of the war.
Svitlana and their two children stayed in Troitske under Russian occupation for four months.
She says she already heard “say thank you” and how she should be more grateful, but it was from Russian soldiers, who came to her house to conduct “extensive searches and beatings”.
As she is sharing her experience under Russian occupation with Euronews, she’s trying hard to stop her tears.
“Every day the Russians would say, ‘say thank you that we are not touching the kids yet,’” Svitlana recalled.
Svitlana was taking the children – her three-year-old daughter and nine-year-old son – to another room to spare them from witnessing the beatings and harrassment. “My son heard it all, but at least he didn’t see it with his own eyes,” she said.
Having lived through the occupation, Svitlana says, “there is nothing human in the Russian army, only total cruelty.”
Moscow’s claims that Russia “came to save and rescue the Donbas” couldn’t be further from the truth and the reality she has lived through.
“I am from the Donbas. They didn’t come to save me. They came to kill me. They were killing me in my own house until the very end.”
Svitlana managed to escape in mid-July 2022, an ordeal that made her understand that Ukrainians will not be forced into any peace agreement, especially not at any cost.
“A truce at any price is impossible because the price has already been set. The price is the lives of our men, the lives of our sons. And there will never be any forgiveness for this, never,” she explained.
Three months ago, Svitlana joined the Armed Forced of Ukraine herself to follow the steps of her fallen husband and protect her children. “If we win now, our children won’t have to fight for our independence and for our rights,” she said.
She has also joined the art therapy project “She is Alive: Love Stories,” which unites Ukrainian women who have lost their husbands and sons, using painting to express their sorrow.
Showing her paintings, Svitlana says she never did drawings before, but now it is the way for her to show her love to her fallen husband, like in one painting where she drew him as a guardian angel for her and their children.
Hundreds of paintings, hundreds of families destroyed
Olena Sokalska, the founder of She is Alive: Love Stories, says art therapy is a safe place for the wives and mothers of fallen soldiers. I
In this community, Olena says, women can feel completely free. “They can talk to each other, laugh, celebrate birthdays. And each of them understands the pain that is inside them, the pain which will always remain,” Olena told Euronews.
She explained that the women feel overwhelming pain, but they mostly paint about their overwhelming love.
“When women lose their husbands, their loved ones, they lose the whole world, themselves, and feel this overwhelming emptiness, this void that nothing can fill,” Olena said.
Art often helps these women more than therapy does, at least because there are not enough therapists to help everyone. “The scale of the tragedy in Ukraine is unprecedented,” she added.
Almost every family in Ukraine has lost someone — their loved men have died, Olena says, adding that just too many people in Ukraine need help and support.
“More than 300 paintings about love have already been painted here. These are 300 happy Ukrainian families which have been destroyed by the war. And this is a small percentage of all those who feel this way,” she explained.
“Three thousand women are currently on the waiting list to join us at our studio to start painting. We just don’t have the resources to invite them all at the same time, so we are looking for support.”
‘I have lost a child, and a child is a future’
Vita Kharchuk from Kyiv is one of the women Euronews met at the studio. Her son was a soldier in the Azov regiment and was defending Ukraine in Mariupol when Russia started the full-scale invasion.
Vita’s painting is about her boy and his fellow soldiers from the photo he sent her on 26 February 2022 from Mariupol, just two days after Moscow’s all-out assault.
In it, Vitaliy Kharchuk smiles as he carries an NLAW anti-tank system on his shoulder. He was killed soon after.
“The three of them died in the city of Mariupol on their position. That’s how I see them. In this picture, there are three young, handsome guys, full of lust for life, love for their homeland, love for their families, full of dreams,“ Vita explained.
She says she had never painted before, as many other women here, but after joining this community three weeks ago, she felt she was among those who understood her.
Although the exact time of his death remains unclear, Vita believes her son was killed in early April, over a month into the defense of Mariupol. He was identified in a mass grave much later, by his tattoos.
“A mother’s pain will never go away and will never ease. I have lost a child, and a child is a future. I don’t have my son, I will never have grandchildren, I won’t have anyone and anything”, Vita says, crying.
Vitalii was just 22 years old, and Vita says his biggest dream was to marry his fiancée and have three children.
All the women coming to this studio say the most important thing they get here is the feeling of being among those who understand them, who understand the same pain of a loss and the same grief.
Here, they don’t have to explain the pain they have been going through that might be unimaginable to others, and what price they and their families have already paid defending Ukraine from Russia’s invasion.
And they know it is only their husbands and sons, together with other Ukrainian men, whom they are forever grateful to for defending them.
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