Oleksandra Matviichuk: Tragedies of war and price of negotiations

by Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian human rights defender, head of the Center for Civil Liberties, which became one of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize laureates

Source: Matviichuk on Facebook

I read about grandmother Zhenya, who froze to death in her apartment in Kyiv. She survived the Holocaust, but did not survive this winter. It turns out we were almost neighbors; she lived at Podil.

The Russians killed an elderly couple who were trying to evacuate on their own from an occupied village in the Sumy region. The man was pulling his wife on a sled through the snow. First, one FPV drone targeted the woman. The second drone attacked the already wounded man, who remained next to her body. 

In the Kharkiv region, Russian Shahed drones targeted a passenger train. The car caught fire, there were killed and injured people, and all the passengers were evacuated. 

The Russians hit a residential building with a drone last night in the Kyiv region. A 4-year-old girl was rescued by a neighbor. Her parents were crushed and burned alive.

Next week it will be minus –22 C (degree Celsius), –7.6 F (degree Fahrenheit), so there will be large-scale shelling again on the weekend.

People are freezing not just in Kyiv. This photo is from Lviv. The temperature in the room when there is no electricity. 12°C (degree Celsius) is 53.6°F (degree Fahrenheit).

Why has Trump’s year of negotiations with Putin become the deadliest year for civilians in Ukraine since 2022? 

Because the human dimension in this war doesn’t matter to the US negotiators. So, Putin decided he could do whatever he wanted.