POSTIMEES IN KYIV ⟩ War in Ukraine is getting ever closer to children

An employee of a Kiev children's hospital shows a photo of a shooting injury caused by Russian saboteurs moving in Kyiv to a 13-year-old boy whose lives are being fought for by doctors in the background in the operating room. Photo: Dmitri Kotjuh

The largest children’s hospital in Kiev has removed nearly all of its little patients to a bomb shelter, where the parents have no space for sleeping.

Andrey, 6, with kidney problems, has been recovering from surgery for five days already in the bomb shelter of Kiev’s largest children’s hospital. His father Alexandr, 35, says that the child will have to become adult fast.

The conditions in the shelter correspond to wartime, Alexandr says.” We are not complaining because the doctors and nurses are doing a wonderful job. We can understand it all. We know that we shall overcome in any case. Whatever the casualties, but we shall win. They will pay for this,” says the father.

“Of course, he sometimes plays with the smartphone but I tell him about life a lot,” the father described his way of spending time with the son. “We are talking about what is going on now. About that he has to grow up soon and become adult. He will become adult at six years of age.”

According to his father, the little Andrey understands well what is happening around him, that there is a war on. “Of course, from a child’s viewpoint, but he takes it seriously,” the father added.

More killed children

A couple of beds away from Andrey was Angelika, 15. She has spent four days in the shelter by now. She is still being studied and is waiting for the diagnosis. She was surprisingly positive. “The conditions are actually good here, you can read books and play board games,” she said.

The girl said that since there are many sick children and the circumstances are restricted, she can see that the hospital staff is getting tired and that may become a problem. “None of us knows how long we have to stay here,” she admitted.

Beds in the children’s hospital shelter have been placed along the walls of narrow corridors, which leave barely a meter’s space for movement. There is no space left for beds for the parents. They are trying to sleep by the beds or sitting at the foot if there is room for it.

As the war goes on, hospitals and medics all over Ukraine will have to bear an increasing burden.

Andrey Vysotsky, an anesthesiologist and the temporary head of emergency department of the Kiev Okhmatdit children’s hospital, said yesterday that since Monday night was relatively calm on the Kiev front, the medics could sleep in shifts of four hours. “But in the previous nights we had only two hours sleeping time,” he said.

According to Vysotsky, few children have been hospitalized so far with injuries due to hostilities. Medics of the Okhmatdit intensive care department struggled yesterday to save the life of a 13-year-old boy whom Russian saboteurs had shot in the face two days ago near central Kiev.

The boy had been brought to the hospital Saturday (February 26) evening, Vysotsky said. According to him, one of the numerous Russian sabotage groups invading Kiev has attacked during the curfew a car driving in the same district as the hospital. There were three children and two adult in the vehicle.

The youngest child, a boy if six, died from bleeding on the way to hospital. The boy fighting for his life yesterday received a bullet in the face. The third child, a girl of 14, was hit in the arm and underwent surgery, but her life was not in danger. The killed boy was her bother and the badly injured boy a relative.

The adults in the car were also hospitalized with bullet wounds.

“The saboteurs also fired at the ambulance taking them to the hospital,” Vysotsky said. “They ignored the large red crosses and opened fire at the ambulance.”

As of Sunday, at least fourteen children had been killed in the attacks of the Russian army attacking Ukraine. “Unfortunately, there will be more,” commented the head of the Okhmatdit hospital, Vladimir Zhovnir.

According to Zhovnir, Kiev’s largest children’s hospital had four children injured in the Russian army attacks undergoing treatment as of yesterday

The hospital was treating altogether approximately 200 children, although there was space for 700. They released for home treatment everyone they could. Only those children who could not be treated at home, Zhovnir said. The transportable patients in torn were taken to the shelter.

The director added that their doctors are constantly receiving phone calls asking about the availability of insulin or other drugs in wartime. There are long queues in the Kiev drugstores. “They even ask about where to get baby food and powdered milk,” he said.

Zhovnir feared that of the war would continue and, what’s worse, intensify, they would no longer be able to provide normal medical assistance to children. They had no shortages for the time being, but he pointed out that the hospital had scheduled an organ transplant a few days ago for a child suffering from cancer. “The parents found a donor in Poland, but the donor could no longer get here and the operation had to be canceled,” the director said. “Unfortunately, our main task is now how to protect our children from bomb raids.”

Victory, Russia’s capitulation and peace

The Kiev hospitals have so far fortunately been spared from missile hits. According to the children’s hospital staff, in the recent days they had discovered and removed from the hospital buildings seven target designation marks made with a special paint. This shows that the hospitals in Kiev are potential targets.

Outside the hospitals Kiev is actively preparing for possible street battles. Roadblocks are being erected everywhere, even in the city center. It is not allowed to photograph or film them.

While the army is fighting at the frontline, the hundreds o checkpoints in the city are manned by tens of thousands of territorial defense volunteers. Their mission is to check all suspicious persons to catch the Russian saboteurs and target designators operating in the city.

One of these checkpoints in Zhuljany district near central Kiev was commanded by the film director Oleg Sentsov who had spent five years as a political prisoner in a Russian jail and whose release had been demanded from Russia’s President Putin by the world public.

“Victory is ours and we shall not hold any negotiations with the aggressors or [discuss] ceasefire at terms which call for any occupation of Ukraine,” Sentsov told Postimees yesterday at the same time as the Ukrainian-Russian negotiations began in Belarus. “This is no longer possible after they have attacked with missiles apartment houses, opened fire at our children, women and the elderly. This is a direct aggression and the aggressor must be crushed. We want [Russia’s] capitulation. Victory, capitulation and peace.”