Wounded by War: Painful Memories That Tear at the Soul and Heart

The war erupted unexpectedly across cities throughout Ukraine. They all suffered, but the city of Izium was among the hardest hit, with more than 80% of its buildings damaged or destroyed.

People’s painful memories continue to haunt their hearts and souls. These wounds may never heal, and time itself may not be enough to ease the pain.

One memory, in particular, continues to break hearts: the tragedy at 2 Pamiati Street.

Russian aircraft dropped an aerial bomb on a residential building while civilians were sheltering in its basement. Many people died beneath the rubble, including members of the Repin family and other residents.

Tetiana Tabakina, a resident of Izium, came to pay tribute to her loved ones. Her 52-year-old sister and 22-year-old nephew were killed beneath the rubble. Tetiana says they had remained in the basement of the building.

“Their apartment was on the fifth floor. My sister loved knitting soft toys. We will never know whether they would have survived if they had stayed in the apartment. I had asked her to come and stay with me. She said, ‘We’re coming to you.’ But then they stayed here. Her last message to me was, ‘How are you?’ After that, we lost contact,” Tetiana recalls.

The life story of my acquaintance, Halyna Zhykharieva, is no less tragic. Eight members of her family lost their lives in the disaster.

For a month and a half, Halyna Zhykharieva came to the ruins of this building. Russian soldiers drove her away, but she returned day after day, praying that her loved ones had survived. Her last hope faded when the rubble was cleared and the bodies were recovered.

Photographs of this family’s graves spread across social media.

For more than a month, Russian troops would not allow anyone to approach the ruins of the building. But Halyna, the mother of Oleksandr Zhykhariev, came to 2 Pershotravneva Street every day for a month and a half. She waited. She prayed. She hoped that her loved ones had survived. Although Russian soldiers repeatedly drove her away, she stubbornly returned, crying out in anguish over the ruins.

In early April, local residents, using basic equipment and the help of municipal services, began clearing the rubble. The bodies were difficult to identify. They had been severely burned. Yet a mother’s heart recognized her son, Oleksandr. Halyna was also able to identify Dmytro and Olena by their tattoos. The woman had an Arabic phrase tattooed on her arm and a feather on her collarbone. The man had wings covering his entire back — a tattoo Olena had given Dmytro as a birthday present. Halyna was never able to identify Mariia and Tetiana Zhykharieva…

Their friend, Tetiana Lunina, says that a former classmate of Olena helped organize the funeral of the Stolpakov and Zhykhariev families. The people Halyna Zhykharieva was able to identify were buried by Russian soldiers with nameplates marking their graves. Their families had to beg the soldiers to do this, as they had intended to bury everyone in a mass grave.

Tetiana and Mariia Zhykharieva, whose bodies were never identified, were buried in a mass grave…

Those who died:

Dmytro Stolpakov — 33 years old

Olena Stolpakova — 31 years old

Oleksandra Paniukhno — 8 years old

Olesia Stolpakova — 5 years old

Mariia Zhykharieva — 13 years old

Oleksandr Zhykhariev — 49 years old

Tetiana Zhykharieva — 49 years old

Liudmyla Sokol — according to preliminary information, she was over 70 years old

Polina, a friend of 13-year-old Mariia Zhykharieva, recalls that the girl was frightened when they last exchanged messages.

“She really wanted to get a full night’s sleep without the sounds of explosions and to eat something decent,” Polina remembers.

The following day, all contact with the family was lost.

“On March 7 and 8, I tried to call everyone, but I couldn’t get through. My son had warned me that this might happen. On the 9th, I began to panic terribly. I dialed the phone numbers of my children, in-laws, and relatives who had remained in Izium a million times. But it was all in vain,” says Marharyta Smoliarova, the mother of 33-year-old Dmytro Stolpakov, her voice filled with despair.

It is still unknown what happened to this woman or whether she is still living in Izium.

And how many similar stories are there — people who fled, later returned, only to find their homes destroyed!

Svitlana and Oleksandr Andriienko returned to Izium almost immediately after the city was liberated, despite the fact that their apartment had been destroyed. Svitlana, who had spent her entire life baking bread, has been unable to find work. The couple live on her husband’s pension, using the money to rent an apartment in a building without heating. They are doing everything they can to bury her mother, whose remains have lain without a proper burial for a year.

“My mother was killed. We were sheltering beneath concrete slabs in the basement of a five-story apartment building, but she could not walk and had remained in the apartment — it took a direct hit. The military evacuated us on the ninth; we were among the last to leave. We heard a vehicle approaching, and it turned out to be the military. They took us toward Sloviansk and then farther away. We had our ten-year-old grandson with us. He has had a disability since birth, and we had no home left.

“But we returned because we had to bury my mother. It was not someone else’s responsibility — her children had to do it. She has already been reburied twice: first by our people, and then by the Russians. Now she is in Kharkiv. A DNA test has been carried out, and we need to give her a proper burial,” Svitlana explains.

The war has brought pain and suffering to all of us. We hope that it will soon come to an end and that peace will finally prevail. But even a thousand years from now, the wounds of the soul may continue to ache, and the echoes of war will continue to haunt us.

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