Ukraine war: ‘They didn’t even let me say goodbye – it’s been almost a year since I last saw my mum, since I heard her voice’
Apart from the odd roadblock and uniformed men carrying weapons and checking your car, in certain parts of Ukraine, it’s very easy to forget there’s a war going on.
In a completely non-descript town in central Ukraine, parents with their children in tow walked to restaurants and cafes, played in playgrounds, or waited for older siblings to finish big school and re-join the family.
It all seems normal. Nobody looks particularly stressed.
Spring is coming, and in eastern Europe there is always a tangible sense of joy as the months of snow and ice give way to the months of sun and flowers, green grass, blue skies, and bright yellow wheatfields.
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But there is a darkness now that never lifts.
The dark of war is equally tangible, and even amid the laughter of children drinking sodas and eating pizza, there is a sadness that pervades everything.
In this apparent normality, there are little ones who have witnessed things they should never have witnessed and suffered more than anyone should suffer.
And despite their tough game faces, they’re breaking inside.
I met Oleksandr “Sasha” Radchuk sitting on a park bench, and I wished I could offer him some comfort.
Sasha
Russian soldiers tore the 12-year-old from his mother a year ago in Mariupol and sent him to Russian-occupied territory in Donetsk.
He hasn’t seen her since.
Now he just has his grandmother Lyudmila Syrik, who travelled thousands of miles to find him and bring him home.
Grandma and Sasha
It all began for this little boy when he was injured in the eye by shrapnel from a rocket as he and his mother left their Mariupol basement to cook food outside.
“After 24 February, we were hiding in a basement, there was no electricity and no water, and we didn’t have enough food, we couldn’t buy anything because we had less and less money,” Sasha told me.
The family managed to find safety at a nearby factory housing Ukrainian soldiers and he received first aid for his injured eye.
The Ukrainian military looked after them until they had to surrender when Mariupol fell to the Russians last year.
Sasha and his 32-year-old mother Snizhana Kozlova were taken by Russian soldiers to a so-called filtration camp, where they were separated.
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Ukraine’s Missing Children
“They questioned my mum, and then they said that child services from Novoazovsk would come and will take me away from my mum, and they also told me that my mum doesn’t need me and that she will never get me back,” Sasha explained to me.
“We were in a camp, and they were doing the filtration process, and then they took my mom into another tent, and then they took me away.”
I asked him what his mother said when they were trying to take him away.
“They had already taken me away from her, and didn’t even let me say goodbye, and it’s been almost a year since I last saw my mum, since I heard her voice.”
Sasha and grandma
In a café, Sasha showed me pictures of his mum on his phone.
I watched as his face lit up as he scrolled through photos and played videos of the two of them together, smiling and having fun.
To this day Sasha doesn’t know what has happened to his mother.
He was saved by his grandmother after doctors in Donetsk posted pictures of him on social media.
Sasha says he thinks the doctors were trying to help him find his relatives.
Outraged, his grandmother Lyudmila travelled through Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and then Russia to get him back.
Although she struggled to get her travel documents in order and had a little trouble at checkpoints along the way, she ultimately made it – and found him.
“I hugged him and told him, my child, now you will be with me, and I told him we will try to find your mum, because he had asked me earlier, ‘granny, are you coming to get me?’ And I said yes, I am coming to get you, I need to get to you somehow, he told me there was shooting where he was, and I told him, before they take you away from there, I need to get you.”
Like Sasha, Lyudmila doesn’t know what has happened to her daughter. But she chooses to hope for her grandson’s sake.
Grandma, Sasha and Stuart Ramsay
“Maybe she’s in a camp,” she offered up quietly.
Sasha hopes that by telling his story and telling the world about his mum, somehow, they will be reunited.
This is Sasha’s story, there are thousands just like his.
A Gaza deal is “on the brink”, President Joe Biden has said in his final foreign policy address.
The outgoing US leader said it would include a hostage release deal and a “surge” of aid to Palestinians.
“So many innocent people have been killed, so many communities have been destroyed. Palestinian people deserve
peace,” he said.
“The deal would free the hostages, halt the fighting, provide security to Israel, and allow us to significantly surge humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians who suffered terribly in this war that Hamas started.”
Pic: Reuters
The US president also hailed Washington’s support for Israel during two Iranian attacks in 2024.
“All told, Iran is weaker than it’s been in decades,” he said.
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Mr Biden was delivering his final foreign policy address before he leaves office next week.
Monday’s address will be the penultimate time he speaks to the country before the end of his presidency. He is due to give a farewell address on Wednesday.
US and Arab mediators made significant progress overnight toward brokering a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and the release of scores of hostages held in the Gaza Strip – but a deal has not been reached yet, officials said.
A round of ceasefire talks will be held in Doha on Tuesday to finalise remaining details related to a ceasefire deal in Gaza – including over the release of up to 33 hostages – officials added.
Mr Biden went on to claim America’s adversaries were weaker than when he took office four years ago and that the US was “winning the worldwide competition”.
“Compared to four years ago, America is stronger, our alliances are stronger, our adversaries and competitors are
weaker,” he said.
“We have not gone to war to make these things happen.”
World
IDF admits ‘serious offence’ after using vehicle marked ambulance in raid in which a grandmother was killed
The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has admitted to a “serious offence” after a Sky News investigation analysed CCTV footage showing the moment an 80-year-old Palestinian grandmother was shot in the West Bank.
Halima Abu Leil was shot during a raid in Nablus. The grandmother died soon after.
During the course of the investigation, we noted that a blue vehicle marked as an ambulance and with a red light on its roof was used by IDF troops to enter the West Bank.
Our investigation stated: “Figures who appear to be Israeli military forces exit the ambulance in the foreground. They are equipped with helmets, backpacks, rifles, and other gear.”
The use of a marked medical vehicle for a security operation could be a contravention of the Geneva Convention and a war crime – as well as Halima’s killing.
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CCTV shows Palestinian grandmother shot in IDF raid
The IDF has subsequently told Sky News: “On December 19, 2024, soldiers from the ‘Duvdevan’ unit took part in an operational mission to detain terrorists in Nablus.
“During the operation, an ambulance-like vehicle was used for operational purposes, without authorisation and without the relevant commanders’ approval.”
It added: “The use of the ambulance-like vehicle during the operation was a serious offence, exceeding authority, and a violation of existing orders and procedures.”
It also said the commander of the ‘Duvdevan’ unit was “reprimanded”.
However, it gave no update into the death of Halima, saying “the circumstances of the incident are being examined”.
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The United Nations Special Rapporteur on occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese watched the CCTV video and told Sky News her death could be a “war crime”.
She said: “When I look at the footage, what emerges prima facie is that there were no precautions taken – within these operations whose legality is debatable – to avoid or spare civilian life.
“No principle of proportionality because there was wildfire directed at the identified target and ultimately no respect for the principle of distinction.
“So this was a murder in cold blood and could be a war crime as an extrajudicial killing.”
According to the United Nations Office Of Human Rights in occupied Palestinian territory, Israeli security forces and settlers have killed at least 813 mostly unarmed Palestinians, including 15 women and 177 children, since 7 October 2023.
Ukraine’s president is offering a prisoner swap with North Korean soldiers it has captured, in exchange for Ukrainians held by Russia.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made a direct appeal to leader Kim Jong Un after seizing two North Koreans in Russia’s Kursk region.
“In addition to the first captured soldiers from North Korea, there will undoubtedly be more. It’s only a matter of time before our troops manage to capture others,” he said in a video posted on X.
His video also included an offer of help to officials in California fighting the ongoing fires there.
It is the first time Ukraine has announced the capture of North Korean soldiers since their entry into the nearly three-year-old war last autumn.
Ukrainian and Western assessments say that some 11,000 troops from Russia‘s ally North Korea have been deployed in the Kursk region to support Moscow’s forces, although Russia has neither confirmed nor denied their presence.
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un met in Pyongyang to sign a ‘military pact’ in June 2024. Pic: Kremlin Photo/AP
Mr Zelenskyy has said Russian and North Korean forces had suffered heavy losses.
“Ukraine is ready to hand over Kim Jong Un’s soldiers to him if he can organise their exchange for our warriors who are being held captive in Russia,” Mr Zelenskyy added.
He posted a short video showing the interrogation of two men, presented as North Korean soldiers.
One of them is lying on a bed with bandaged hands, the other is sitting with a bandage on his jaw.
Ukraine said on Saturday it had captured two North Korean soldiers. Pic: Volodymyr Zelenskyy/X
One of the men said through an interpreter that he did not know he was fighting against Ukraine and had been told he was on a training exercise. He said he hid in a shelter during the offensive and was found a couple of days later.
He said that if he was ordered to return to North Korea, he would, but he was ready to stay in Ukraine if given the chance.
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Sky News has not been able to verify the video.
“One of them (soldiers) expressed a desire to stay in Ukraine, the other to return to Korea,” said Mr Zelenskyy, adding that for North Korean soldiers who did not wish to return home, there may be other options available.
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