Photo: Anton Gerashchenko/Twitter
As Russia’s attack on Ukraine continues, a Ukrainian official shared the writings of a young girl who lost her mother in the ravaged city of Borodyanka, where some of the worst destruction has occurred.
Anton Gerashchenko — an advisor and a former deputy minister at Ukraine’s Ministry of Internal Affairs — posted to Twitter a photo of the girl’s letter to her mother scrawled in a day planner.
The March 8 letter is signed “Galia,” according to Gerashchenko’s post, although it’s unclear how the official came into possession of the letter.
“Mom, this letter is your present,” Galia wrote, according to a translation. “If you think that you nurtured me for no reason, you are not right. Thank you for the 9 years of my life. Thank you so much for my childhood. You are the best mother in the world! I will never forget you! I wish you happiness in heaven. I wish you to go to heaven. We will meet in heaven. I will try to behave myself to go to heaven. Kissing you.”
It’s an intimate look into the human toll behind the conflict in Ukraine, showing how the devastation is impacting the civilian victims of Russian aggression.
Ukrainian officials are still counting the death toll in Borodyanka, but officials put “conservative” estimates at 5,000, theGuardianreported.
Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyycalled the destruction in the city “much more disastrous” than in the neighboring city of Bucha, which emerged as an example of Russian brutality upon Russia’s withdrawal from the area in late March. Ukrainian forces discovered scenes of mass graves and the dead decomposing in the streets, and Defense MinisterOleksii Reznikov reportedmore than 400 dead in a video address.
Illia Ponomarenko, a reporter for the Kyiv Independent, postedphotos of the aftermath in Borodyankaon Twitter, saying “One can literally film scenes for movies about the Hiroshima blast in some part of the town.”
source: people.com
