Falling Skies: Part 3 — Costs of war stack up on Ukrainian soldiers, civilians
KYIV, Ukraine —
Nebraska farmer Don Hutchens remembers when Kyiv’s Independence Square was a place for picnics, where people would spread blankets across the grass and spend the day.
Now, the blue and yellow of memorial flags have swallowed the green. Rows of flags, mostly Ukrainian but also from all over the world, commemorate soldiers killed in the war with Russia. Photos and love notes often stand next to them.
“They’re all the same, and they’re all different,” said Hutchens, a Nebraska farmer who has visited Ukraine. “They had so many different lives ahead of them. Some had children. They all had mothers that mourn for them.”
Hutchens and former Nebraska State Sen. Tom Brewer have watched the memorial grow over the years. Brewer has made nine trips to Ukraine, serving as an unofficial ambassador of sorts to a country fighting for its survival.
“They’re fighting so hard, sacrificing so many lives in this war to maintain their freedom,” Brewer said. “And yet the world, in many cases, has forgotten that this war is even happening.”
The mourning and military funerals have become intertwined with everyday life across Ukraine.
Ukrainian chaplain Gennadiy Mokhnenko said that when traveling the country, it is impossible to miss the cemeteries, swollen with freshly dug graves.
“You can see many, many, many cemeteries,” Mokhnenko said. “This part of the flags, this is about our price.”
Mokhnenko knows that price personally.
“Nine of my sons have been wounded in the war, and two of my sons were killed,” he said.
He delivers humanitarian aid and spiritual support to soldiers and civilians near the front lines. His mornings begin with a ritual that would have been unimaginable before the war.
“I immediately call for my children and ask them if they are still alive,” Mokhnenko said. “Can you imagine? You wake up in the morning and you must check who is alive from your children.”
Vasyl, a Ukrainian soldier in the country’s southeast, said his conversations with his son have also changed. Both are now fighting near each other on the front.
“How are you, son?” Vasyl recalled asking.
“I’m fine, killing Russians,” his son replied.
“How are you, Dad?”
“Everything all right. I’m killing Russians too.”
Vasyl dreams of the day the fighting ends, and he and his son can return to talking about ordinary things — including family trips and travel.
“We have a lot of trips with my family, with my sons,” he said. “Because I want to meet everyone all over the world and say thank you to everyone who helped Ukraine.”
But the war has a way of disappointing imagination. No one thought it would take this long, kill this many. The war has swallowed the horizon and left a cloud of smoke in its place.
“There is no safe place in Ukraine,” said Yevhen, a wounded veteran recovering in a hospital. “It’s not just the front lines, but even further into our country, everything gets hit.”
Yevhen barely survived a drone attack while returning from a position.
“We were watching the skies to make sure there were no enemy drones,” he said. “And it slammed right into us.”
The battlefield has increasingly been shaped by drones, which can make evacuating wounded soldiers especially dangerous. The lead surgeon at a military hospital said that about 90% of the wounds he treats stem from drone attacks.
Constant surveillance also means wounded soldiers sometimes must wait for darkness, dawn or stormy weather before they can safely be evacuated.
Arsen, another wounded veteran, knows that danger firsthand. Bullets shattered his femur several years ago. When an evacuation team arrived, it came under fire and had to stay back, leaving him in agony alone for hours.
“I had to sort of take care of myself,” Arsen said.
He has since regained mobility and now helps other wounded veterans, even teaching them how to play golf.
But some injuries are harder to see.
Arsen said he repeatedly dreams that he is alone in different locations in the war zone, with enemy forces approaching.
“I don’t know how to even fight back,” he said. “I feel completely useless and helpless and terrified and anxious.”
Arsen said community is the only way to mend the men and women broken by war.
“We create a small circle of veterans, and we try to support others to recover from this,” he said. “The mental prison that they’re in, we try to release them from that.”
Across Ukraine, ordinary life continues alongside the destruction. For Hutchens, that persistence is itself an act of resistance.
“Life goes on. They have no other choice,” he said. “If they hunker down and hide and don’t get out and go to work or do the family things that they’re doing, then it lets the Russians win. But they’re continuing their lives the best that they can.”
Amid the darkness of memorials, hospitals and battlefields, Mokhnenko keeps hold of an ironic light.
“I am sure the light will win,” he said.