![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1788924912_785_82d6cd78-c80d-4d40-a926-33a68095e21b_1749622023.file.png\")
<\/a>KYIV, Ukraine \u2014<\/p>\nNebraska farmer Don Hutchens remembers when Kyiv\u2019s Independence Square was a place for picnics, where people would spread blankets across the grass and spend the day.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re all the same, and they\u2019re all different,\u201d said Hutchens, a Nebraska farmer who has visited Ukraine. \u201cThey had so many different lives ahead of them. Some had children. They all had mothers that mourn for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re fighting so hard, sacrificing so many lives in this war to maintain their freedom,\u201d Brewer said. \u201cAnd yet the world, in many cases, has forgotten that this war is even happening.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mourning and military funerals have become intertwined with everyday life across Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian chaplain Gennadiy Mokhnenko said that when traveling the country, it is impossible to miss the cemeteries, swollen with freshly dug graves.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see many, many, many cemeteries,\u201d Mokhnenko said. \u201cThis part of the flags, this is about our price.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mokhnenko knows that price personally.<\/p>\n
“Nine of my sons have been wounded in the war, and two of my sons were killed,” he said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI immediately call for my children and ask them if they are still alive,\u201d Mokhnenko said. \u201cCan you imagine? You wake up in the morning and you must check who is alive from your children.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vasyl, a Ukrainian soldier in the country\u2019s southeast, said his conversations with his son have also changed. Both are now fighting near each other on the front.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are you, son?\u201d Vasyl recalled asking.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m fine, killing Russians,\u201d his son replied.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow are you, Dad?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cEverything all right. I\u2019m killing Russians too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vasyl dreams of the day the fighting ends, and he and his son can return to talking about ordinary things \u2014 including family trips and travel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have a lot of trips with my family, with my sons,\u201d he said. \u201cBecause I want to meet everyone all over the world and say thank you to everyone who helped Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no safe place in Ukraine,\u201d said Yevhen, a wounded veteran recovering in a hospital. \u201cIt\u2019s not just the front lines, but even further into our country, everything gets hit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yevhen barely survived a drone attack while returning from a position.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were watching the skies to make sure there were no enemy drones,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd it slammed right into us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Constant surveillance also means wounded soldiers sometimes must wait for darkness, dawn or stormy weather before they can safely be evacuated.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had to sort of take care of myself,\u201d Arsen said.<\/p>\n
He has since regained mobility and now helps other wounded veterans, even teaching them how to play golf.<\/p>\n
But some injuries are harder to see.<\/p>\n
Arsen said he repeatedly dreams that he is alone in different locations in the war zone, with enemy forces approaching.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know how to even fight back,” he said. “I feel completely useless and helpless and terrified and anxious.” <\/p>\n
Arsen said community is the only way to mend the men and women broken by war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe create a small circle of veterans, and we try to support others to recover from this,\u201d he said. \u201cThe mental prison that they\u2019re in, we try to release them from that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Across Ukraine, ordinary life continues alongside the destruction. For Hutchens, that persistence is itself an act of resistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife goes on. They have no other choice,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they hunker down and hide and don\u2019t get out and go to work or do the family things that they\u2019re doing, then it lets the Russians win. But they\u2019re continuing their lives the best that they can.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amid the darkness of memorials, hospitals and battlefields, Mokhnenko keeps hold of an ironic light.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am sure the light will win,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Falling Skies: Part 3 \u2014 Costs of war stack up on Ukrainian soldiers, civilians KYIV, Ukraine \u2014 Nebraska…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13540,13363,13361,158,25,13541,26,319,12477],"class_list":["post-39383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-don-hutchens","tag-falling-skies","tag-gennadiy-mokhnenko","tag-kyiv","tag-russia","tag-tom-brewer","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-war","tag-war-reporting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}