Mykola first thought it was a dream. The windows of his home blown out. The whistle of a shell landing. An explosion. <\/p>\n
But as the\u00a010-year-old\u00a0younger son of Larisa and Mykola Glushko staggered in the dark,\u00a0toward\u00a0his mother\u2019s room, he\u00a0realized\u00a0he was awake, and that his mother lay before him, crushed beneath a collapsed concrete baton. <\/p>\n
\u201cSomething\u00a0fell,\u201d\u00a0he recalled.\u00a0\u201cMom\u00a0was saying, \u2018Kolya, Kolya.\u2019 I\u00a0shouted,\u00a0\u2018Mom, I\u2019m alive.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
He said he frantically scraped the dust from his face and eyes. \u201cI saw my\u00a0Mom crushed down by the ceiling. I tried to pull it\u00a0away,\u00a0but I couldn\u2019t.\u00a0Mom was moaning and shaking her legs. And I was\u00a0shouting,\u00a0\u2018Mother, mother, it\u2019s just a dream, a horrible dream.\u2019\u201d Mykola had a similar nightmare days earlier, and felt it might be recurring. \u201cThen there was darkness.\u201d <\/p>\n
His mother died in front of him. His father was killed by the initial explosion. Hours earlier, the family had a barbecue, and Mykola senior drank one beer too many and talked passionately about enlisting. In the pitch black, his son clambered outside, the front of their comfortable family home beyond recognition, its gates torn clean away. <\/p>\n
Mykola said: \u201cI was\u00a0screaming,\u00a0\u2018God, why did you do this to\u00a0me?\u2019\u00a0I was running in underwear asking for help.\u201d <\/p>\n
For Mykola, the act of survival stretches what any\u00a010-year-old\u00a0could be expected to\u00a0bear. His\u00a0loss,\u00a0part of a patina of suffering across Ukraine\u2019s two years of war, where Russian missiles that slammed inexplicably into civilian targets, claim lives that do not make the headlines, and unravel childhoods in ways that will echo for decades in Ukraine. <\/p>\n
Mykola was given a shot\u00a0of medicine\u00a0to calm him in\u00a0hospital,\u00a0and his brother came to explain what had happened. \u201cHe told me now it\u2019s only me and him left. He repeated it four times. I was trying to calm myself down, but also hated myself. Because I couldn\u2019t save my mom.\u201d <\/p>\n
He\u00a0has spoken\u00a0with his new guardian, his godmother,\u00a0who lives\u00a0nearby,\u00a0and is\u00a0clear he will stay\u00a0in the military town of Pokrovsk to tend their graves. \u201cI will visit them,\u201d he said. \u201c(I will)\u00a0apologize for not able to save them. Will apologize to my father that I couldn\u2019t save my mom, his wife.\u201d <\/p>\n
He\u00a0said\u00a0his dream now is\u00a0different, to ask his\u00a0parents\u00a0important questions.\u00a0\u201cWhat should I do now? How do I live? Another dream is to take revenge on the one who launched the missile.\u201d <\/p>\n
Across the\u00a0eastern frontline, notably\u00a0around Pokrovsk, the\u00a0pace of Russia\u2019s advance appears to quicken, and with it the unspeakable loss of families like Mykola\u2019s. At the ruins of his home,\u00a0neighbors\u00a0said\u00a0there is no military target nearby. Workers\u00a0sifted\u00a0through the dust. The smell of the decaying family dog lingered. On a nearby radio, Russians are so close their\u00a0stations\u00a0were\u00a0audible, explaining to their audience how the West refuses to give Ukraine modern equipment and so \u201cthe ordinary boys from Ukrainian armed forces will be the ones to suck it up.\u201d <\/p>\n
A short drive away, at a\u00a0stabilization\u00a0point in an\u00a0eastern town, the life-changing hideousness of even light injuries\u00a0wasapparent. Sunset means frontline units can begin the task of evacuating their wounded, safe from the Russian attack drones that haunt daylight hours. <\/p>\n
The medical point\u00a0waited\u00a0in complete darkness, and a car\u00a0raced\u00a0out from the night. Two wounded soldiers from\u00a0Klishchiivka\u00a0\u2013\u00a0a town where Moscow has recently claimed success, partially owing to Ukraine having to relocate forces from there to defend against the onslaught in Kharkiv region\u00a0\u2013\u00a0emerged\u00a0from the car. One has his head fully bandaged up and talked,\u00a0his arms outstretched,\u00a0as\u00a0groped\u00a0his way\u00a0forward. The other\u00a0was laid\u00a0flat on a gurney. <\/p>\n
They\u00a0were\u00a0quickly tended to. Clothes\u00a0were\u00a0gently cut away. One had\u00a0damage to his eyes, swollen shut, yet appearedotherwise less badly hurt. The other had\u00a0shrapnel in his leg, flesh injuries to his arm, and\u00a0was\u00a0peppered with shrapnel on his back. His face\u00a0was\u00a0covered with dirt and his eyes also struggled\u00a0to open. <\/p>\n
A mortar landed about\u00a0four\u00a0feet\u00a0(1.2 meters)\u00a0from their dugout. It is a matter of luck and a few feet that they are still physically intact. The staff swiftly tried\u00a0to clean their eyes. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I open the eye like this, do you see the light?\u201d a\u00a0doctor asked. \u201cWhat about people?\u201d The patient could\u00a0only see light. A nurse noticed\u00a0damage to his right hand. They examined\u00a0his back and saw\u00a0a morass of tiny wounds. Suddenly, the patient worsened. \u201cSomething on my\u00a0side,\u201d\u00a0he screamed. <\/p>\n
It is possible the force of the blast caused internal injuries. The doctors moved\u00a0to quickly intervene. Anaesthetic\u00a0was\u00a0injected into his lung, and a tube inserted. \u201cCough, and it will get better,\u201d a doctor\u00a0told\u00a0the patient. <\/p>\n
Around the pair, there\u00a0were\u00a0four empty beds. A year ago, one doctor, Ivan, told\u00a0us, they could have 250 patients a day, when the Russian assault on Bakhmut was at its peak. Yet the drop in patients does not herald an improvement in Ukraine\u2019s war. The 93rd mechanized brigade lacks infantry, and finds it hard to resupply and position them on the frontline because of the threat of Russian drones, an official\u00a0told\u00a0us, and so this stabilization unit lacks patients. It is a chilling reminder of the manpower shortage Kyiv is dealing with after two years of war. <\/p>\n
The patients\u00a0were\u00a0led to a waiting ambulance, which\u00a0left\u00a0in the pitch black, its headlights off. Russia has targeted medical facilities before. <\/p>\n\n
Mykola first thought it was a dream. The windows of his home blown out. The whistle of a shell landing. An explosion. But as the\u00a010-year-old\u00a0younger son of Larisa and Mykola Glushko staggered in the dark,\u00a0toward\u00a0his mother\u2019s room, he\u00a0realized\u00a0he was awake, and that his mother lay before him, crushed beneath a collapsed concrete baton. \u201cSomething\u00a0fell,\u201d\u00a0he recalled.\u00a0\u201cMom\u00a0was <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":19668,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-19667","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19667","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}