There is an opinion on how this Ukrainian fairy tale ends

Dark fairy tales in Ukraine: SASa Dovzhyk and Ieveniia, the Ukrainian woman who fled in Poland in December 2011

The Ukrainian Institute London and University College London have an associate lecturer named SASa Dovzhyk who is also a special projects curator. She has a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Birkbeck, University of London. She divides her time between the UK and Ukranian. Her work on Ukraine is supported by the IWM project Documenting Ukraine. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. CNN has more opinion on it.

December is the month of fairy tales when we are reassured of the “happily ever after” when we look into the darkness.

“We used to joke that our life was like a dark fairy tale inclined towards a happy ending. Ievheniia, a Ukranian woman who fled in Poland in December and is breastfeeding her two-month-old son, speaks of her grief for the child’s father.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

The Ukrainian fairy tale of death: from wedding to funeral in a time of war, to a stranger’s emotions. A voice whispered by Ievheniia

The day after Russia launched its full-scale attack, both Ievheniia and Denys, among thousands of Ukrainian men and women, queued to enlist in the army. Denys signed up immediately, but convinced Ievheniia to send his family to western Ukraine.

The important moments of the Ukrainian fairy tale, from marriage ceremony to funeral, take place via video link. This is what love looks like in a time of war, it’s shifted to the digital space and disrupted mid-plot.

Ievheniia, a 36 year old PhD candidate working as an IT consultant, told me her story in a video call. She trusted a stranger with her pain to raise awareness about the fight which, since the start of Russia’s invasion in February, has claimed the lives of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers.

The festive season is well underway in the streets of Warsaw. The Christmas season is almost here. Ievheniia said that people don’t want to be reminded that they are suffering. “And yet, they must be aware that this fight is unfolding right next to them.”

After driving westwards across the country under Russian bombardment, Ievheniia finally arrived at an enlistment office. She was told to come back on Monday and sign the contract after being interviewed on a Friday.

On the weekend, she decided to take a pregnancy test, just in case. “With war and evacuation, the ground was slipping under one’s feet,” she said with a laugh. I found out that I was pregnant.

The pregnancy test provided that plot twist: the woman who planned to defend her homeland instead joined the flow of refugees looking for safety in Poland.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

A fairy tale tale of two Ukrainians and one woman: Ieveniia and Denys. The warsaw tragedy unfolded

After their war, Ievheniia and Denys sought to show their partnership to the state. The everyday ingenuity of the country at war was at work; now, Ukrainian servicemen are allowed to marry via a video call. We were married by a handsome man in a uniform instead of boring civil servants. Ievheniia said that he had nothing to complain about.

Over the following months, Denys kept the magic alive via the Internet, with flower deliveries and professional photoshoots ordered for Ievheniia from the trenches.

When one morning she did not pick up the phone, Denys raised the alarm all over Warsaw and a rescue squad found Ievheniia unconscious in her rented flat. A delay could have ended in death. The Caesarean section was followed by another. Because the baby was born two months early, the father was able to meet his new son.

Ukrainian men of fighting age are not allowed to leave the country. Yet as is appropriate for a fairy tale, Denys got permission, crossed the border, and spent five days with his family.

“It was a magical time filled with ordinary things: shopping, registering with a pediatrician, laughing, talking. He left after that. On his birthday, Ievheniia sent greetings. He was killed the next day.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

Do folktales end in disaster? – A challenge that Ukrainians can’t live in if they’re afraid to give up

The Italian journalist and editor of folktales called them “consolatory fables” because a rare fairy tale ends badly. If it does, it means the time to be consoled has not yet come. It is time to act.

We need not believe in the narrative logic of a fairy tale. The wily kid doesn’t plan on using magic to defeat the monster. Ukrainians need military aid to bring a victory not just prolonging the fight but bringing a win too. Ukrainian victory depends on our collective effort.

I wondered how I would act in a fight against evil while I was a teenager. Would I be able to turn away and proceed with my daily life?” Ievheniia told me. Today, we have a chance to find out.

Slavutych, Bosnia: The last frontier for a man with cerebral palsy in a Russian city without a place?

Russian troops were in Slavutych for more than a month. Supplies were limited due to the city being cut off. The sound of missiles and planes flying overhead was constant.

He has a severe form of cerebral palsy and is unable to move or eat on his own. He has frequent seizures and sometimes struggles to breathe.

After his mother died three months ago, no one was willing to take care of him, even though he needs round the clock care. While his mother lived with her disabled stepson, he continued to stay with his stepmother and step-grandmother, who sometimes referred to him as “it”, and contemplated whether he would be better off with her.

The future looks less happy for Sasha Kharitonov. With nobody able or willing to care for him, he was transferred to a facility near Kyiv in early March, days after CNN’s visit. There isn’t a place in this location for a long-term stay, but there is an exception that was made for swath the man because there was no space available elsewhere.

His distant aunt, Lilia Seheda, wanted to take him in, but as the single mom of two children, it’s too much for her. She would visit a couple times a day to help change or feed the dog. She read to him sometimes and she was watching his smile.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/world/ukraine-disabilities-cnnphotos-intl-cmd/

Riesa Kravchenko and his girlfriend Maryna Klepets posed for a dance party at a disco hall

“I have been told by officials that care and support for people with intellectual disabilities and their families is ‘a luxury’ during wartime. So, we will have to wait until after the war to have this luxury,” said Raisa Kravchenko, the president of the All Ukrainian NGO Coalition for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.

The son of Kravchenko has an intellectual disability and a behavioral disorder that is related to the trauma he suffered during his birth. He was born in what was then Soviet Ukraine in the mid-1980s, at a time when the standard procedure was to put disabled children in institutions.

The place offers a chance to escape the war. There is a forest and a river nearby that have lots of fresh air. Thanks to the recent installation of solar panels, there are no powerouts or air raid sirens on the property.

On a recent Saturday, the common room was transformed into a disco hall. A colorful party light was flashing, giving the otherwise dark room a green tint.

Oleksiy Kravchenko, Raisa’s son, spent most of the evening with his friend Maryna Klepets. No matter what kind of music was on, the two were slow dancing, standing about two feet apart from each other, holding hands and shuffling from side to side.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/world/ukraine-disabilities-cnnphotos-intl-cmd/

A CNN Observational Analysis of the Klepets Children’s First Year in Uganda: When a War Breaks and Maryna is Injured

Maryna likes to be alone. She often avoids eye contact and occasionally hides her face by pressing her chin into her shoulder.

She likes to sit on the couch in the kitchen where she can peruse the magazines and books. She likes to have something on in the background, TV or radio. And she loves to draw. She told CNN that she draws the war sometimes. She uses the colors of war to decorate her house.

The Klepets family had a difficult time with the early days of the invasion. The constant sounds of war made Maryna not like going into the shelter. She could not listen to anything to distract herself because there wasn’t a signal in the basement. She spent one night just lying down, talking to herself.

She told CNN that she watched bandits kill a woman outside, most likely referring to the strike on a residential building across the street.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/world/ukraine-disabilities-cnnphotos-intl-cmd/

CNN reaches out to families in Ukraine: Fostering families with disabilities in Assisted Living Facilities and the Bohuslav Retreat Program for cdophilic children

The trips to Bohuslav are the only time Yuliia can get some respite, away from Maryna. Maryna seems to like the trips. She comes back happier and calmer. It would be better to have this option more often.

The retreat program was partially funded prior to the war. Each 10-day stay costs about $580 per client and a foreign sponsor has stepped in for six months, but the money is running out. And while families could pay for additional stays privately, the cost is prohibitive for most.

Kravchenko said the chronic lack of support means many families face an almost impossible choice between placing their child in an institution or managing entirely on their own.

CNN has reached out to several Ukrainian government departments and many residential facilities, but has not received answers to some questions about funding or availability of services.

“The dream is to have more assisted-living facilities,” Kravchenko said. Foster care in Ukraine is only legal for children, so we need the government’s support for family-based foster care of adults. Children with disabilities can’t be in foster care until they are 23. Once a person is 22, he or she is placed into an institution.

Because the law doesn’t provide for adult placement in families — a common practice in many Western countries — many carers may not be eligible for meaningful help from the state.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/world/ukraine-disabilities-cnnphotos-intl-cmd/

Oleksandr Pylypenko and his wife, Halyna, fled Mariupol, Ukraine, during the 2016 February 11 attack

Oleksandr Pylypenko and Halyna are aware of this. The couple, both in their sixties, recently fled Mariupol, the southeastern Ukrainian city that was flattened by Russian troops during a brutal campaign of bombardment last year.

Since Shevchenko’s mother died in 2016, he had been living on his own, getting help from carers paid by his nephew who lives in the United States. Halyna Pylypenko was one of them. She would come in the morning, help him get up, take him out for a walk or to a club for people with Down syndrome and spend the day with him. She would put him to bed and lock the door in the evening.

“He has a heart of gold,” Oleksandr Pylypenko said, sitting next to Shevchenko on a sofa in their temporary home in Bohuslav, found through an NGO affiliated with the one run by Kravchenko. Every now and then, Shevchenko leans over to Pylypenko and plants a kiss on his face, smiling widely.

This was no longer an option when the war started. So, the Pylypenkos took Shevchenko in. When they decided to flee — after spending almost a month sheltering in a basement with 35 other people — they took him with them.

“If he stayed alone, he would not have survived. It’s impossible. We had no idea it was a question for us. He is a nice person, how could we leave him? Halyna Pylypenko said.

They don’t have legal guardianship over Shevchenko who is, in the eyes of the legal system, competent to take care of his own affairs. Legal documents are the only things that remain of the family, who have lost everything in the war. After four months of bureaucratic back and forth, they managed to restore Shevchenko’s disability payments, although the amount is very small.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/world/ukraine-disabilities-cnnphotos-intl-cmd/

On a young boy’s childhood: Maksym Kapustianskyi, the Russian invasion guarded by a child and surrounded by mud

Maksym Kapustianskyi is moving all the time. He paces all the time at home. He often hops on the spot. He checks the wall on his rounds in the living room, trying to make sure it is still there.

He doesn’t know what’s going on. He acts like a young child, says Yuri Kapustianskyi. He lay there on the train with eight other people. We were asleep when two missiles flew by at 3 a.m. There were either missiles or mud hitting the roof. And he lay there smiling. He had to help and it was a stressed out situation. There wasn’t a peep out of him,” he said.

When the full-scale Russian invasion began, Kapustianskyi, a single dad who says his wife left him and Maksym eight years ago, walked five hours from his home to the boarding school where Maksym was staying Mondays to Fridays to pick him up and take him to safety.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/world/ukraine-disabilities-cnnphotos-intl-cmd/

CNN. The effects of the Chernobyl disaster on Yuliia Klepets: A neurotypical young man at the zoo

“Don’t shut (disabled people) in care homes,” he said. “If they take these kids to the zoo, make sure ordinary kids are there too, say a class of neurotypical kids goes alongside a class of autistic kids so they can mix. Give the care homes the opportunity to play soccer together.

It’s something Yuliia Klepets agrees with. I don’t want people to feel bad for me. I just want them to understand us, not to be afraid of people like Maryna, have more information,” she told CNN.

Doctors claim that the Chernobyl nuclear disaster caused Yaroslav to suffer from congenital hydrocephalus and Dandy-Walker syndrome, conditions which he developed two years before he was born.

He too requires round-the-clock care. He can indicate he needs to go to the toilet but can’t eat by himself. But he does like to be around people and used to love standing on the balcony watching the world go past. That happened before the war started.

Repich takes Yaroslav to a local center for people with disabilities where he gets physical therapy. She said that the center’s closure during the occupation was tough on the family — without the therapy and company of others, Yaroslav’s state deteriorated.

While other clients are sometimes forced to spend hours sitting in a cold corridor waiting for air raid alarms to be lifted, Yaroslav is thriving again even though he and all the other clients are sometimes forced to wear their winter coats.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/03/world/ukraine-disabilities-cnnphotos-intl-cmd/

Providing humanitarian assistance to the people of Ukranian. A story about a teenage boy in a stressful environment and the fight against the death of his mother

Seheda was hoping that the teen would end up in a place like that. He struggled to eat when he first arrived after his mother’s death.

“I told them, of course, this is a new environment for him, it’s stressful and he needs to adjust, but the nurse told me that they don’t have time and if he doesn’t want to eat normally, they’d force feed him with a tube,” she said.

Many other organizations are also providing humanitarian assistance. CNN viewers have donated over $8 million to help the people of Ukranian.