Ukrainian Diaries
Many people in Ukraine have kept diaries during the attack from Russia, some of these extracts are now appearing in print & even in English translations. The following is the start of an article in a TLS last month entitled, Writers at War. The writer had found himself from being an everyday journalist for the Kviv Independent, to becoming a war correspondent.
'At 4 am on February 24, 2022, Kyiv was shelled for the first time since the Second World War. A convoy of Russian tanks and artillery some forty miles long headed towards the Ukrainian capital. Andriy, his wife, Svitlana, and their two sons, Artem and Myroslav, fled west along the Zhytomyr highway. A Russian soldier fired into their windshield; Svitlana was driving, and her head fell against her husband in the passenger seat. The boys began screaming – their mother, who had just been with them, was now no longer there at all. As Andriy got Artem out of the car and hid him behind the hood, the Russians shot him in his right leg. Eight-year-old Myroslav looked at the hole in his father’s leg as Andriy pulled him from the car next. The Russians shot the boy, and then his father once more, this time in the left leg. Andriy told his sons to pretend they were dead. When they tired of shooting, the Russians allowed Andriy to call his parents-in-law to pick them up. Later that day Svitlana’s mother and father returned, now with a wheelbarrow to carry their daughter’s body. ' .............