Tetiana’s raw and devastating story of loss reveals the pain behind Ukraine’s war statistics
In a country like Ukraine, where entire cities are being bludgeoned to the ground, the human ramifications are so vast that they often overwhelm the ability of journalists to describe them.
Instead, we rely on numbers – numbers, for example, from the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine which reports that 10,582 civilians have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale attack.
We quote statistics from the Office of the President of Ukraine, which says 529 children have died as a result of the fighting since February 2022.
It was in the city of Kharkiv, however, that I was confronted by the consequences of this conflict in a way that was so raw and devastating that the meaning buried within these numbers was painfully revealed.
On 10 February, the Russians targeted a large fuel depot in the city, using three of their Iran-made Shahed drones.
A fire erupted after the drone strike on 10 February. Pic: Reuters
Their assault was successful – spectacularly so, with smoke and flames from the ruptured tanks billowing miles above the city. A million gallons of diesel and petrol poured into the surrounding streets, flowing like lava into a nearby residential neighbourhood.
The heat was so intense that firefighters struggled to approach the blaze. Some 4,000 square metres were incinerated, along with 15 homes in the city’s Nemyshlyansky district.
When we first saw Tetiana Putiatina, she was standing outside the charred remains of 32 Kotelnia Street. She used to live here with her only son Hryhory and his family of five.
Tetiana Putiatina lost her son, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren when a Russian drone strike hit Kharkiv last month
When I approached, I could tell that the 61-year-old had been crying.
“The children were asleep, there were three of them – seven years old, four years old and 10 months old. They just didn’t have time to get out, to gather the children,” she whispered.
Tetiana was visiting a relative on the night of the attack, leaving the rest of the family at home.
“By nine in the morning, I’d already returned, when they were recovering the bodies. They didn’t show them to me. They were so badly burned.”
Her son Hryhory was a builder and his wife Olna worked at the local prosecutor’s office. She told me the pair had spent much of the past two years trying to keep their three boys safe.
Their oldest child was Oleksii with Mykhaylo in the middle. Pavlo – or Pasha, as they called him – was the baby.
Their parents had taken them to western Ukraine at the beginning of the war when the Russian troops tried to break into Kharkiv but they had returned to the city after several months.
Tetiana said the family would rush to their underground shelter in the garden when the sound of the bombing got close.
On the night of 10 February, however, they had no time to escape, no chance to avoid a river of fire that was racing their way.
Hryhory, Olna and their three children died in the drone assault
“They found my son here, this is where he lay,” said Tetiana, pointing to a spot on the floor in what remains of the corridor.
“It looks like he was looking for a way out. Here in the bathroom, that’s where Olna was, holding two of the children close to her chest. The middle boy (Mykhaylo) ran out to the kitchen. Probably, he was trying to reach his dad.”
Their funeral was held three days later and in a recording of the event, we see surviving family members trying to grapple with the catastrophe. The baby, Pasha, was buried with his mother and we see Tetiana wrapping her arms around their coffin as she sobs.
When these images were posted online, Tetiana was mocked by some who accused her of pretending to be upset. They were Russians seeking to deepen her wounds, she said.
All three children were killed in the attack
“When we were mourning at the cemetery, I held the coffin. There were comments, like, ‘what an actress’ and ‘she plays her role well’.”
She began to cry. “They say they are liberating us. Who are they liberating?
“I was born in the Belgorod region (of Russia) myself. Do they liberate me?
“And my in-laws, my parents-in-law, were all from Russia. We were all Russian-speaking.”
The fuel depot was still smoking when we visited the site and the roads surrounding it were thick with a black sticky residue. We saw workers trying to patch up the heating and water pipes – but there are things in Kharkiv that will never be repaired.
A security guard who works next to what is left of the fuel depot told us it was like looking at a picture of hell.
“You know, the stench will linger for years – that smell is going to stay and it has affected the atmosphere here because there were huge clouds of smoke. It was terrible.”
Tetiana was visiting a relative when the attack happened
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The consequences of this attack will strike many as a depressing feature of Ukraine’s daily existence, another number in an endlessly rising statistical column. But there is nothing normal about this for Tetiana Putiatina.
The destruction of her house and the death of her loved ones have left her with nothing to live for.
“Of course, it’s hard. I come here every day, sometimes multiple times a day.
“I’ll come here, walk around the house, where they found their bodies.
“I’ll shout, I’ll cry, and then I’ll leave.”
The COP29 climate talks have reached a last ditch deal on cash for developing countries, pulling the summit back from the brink of collapse after a group of countries stormed out of a negotiating room earlier.
The slew of deals finally signed off in the small hours of Sunday morning in Azerbaijan includes one that proved hardest of all – one about money.
Eventually the more than 190 countries in Baku agreed a target for richer polluting countries such as the UK, EU and Japan to drum up $300bn a year by 2035 to help poorer nations both curb and adapt to climate change.
It is a far cry from the $1.3trn experts say is needed, and from the $500bn that vulnerable countries like Uganda had said they would be willing to accept.
But in the end they were forced to, knowing they could not afford to live without it, nor wait until next year to try again, when a Donald Trump presidency would make things even harder.
Bolivia’s lead negotiator Diego Pacheco called it an “insult”, while the Marshall Islands’ Tina Stege said it was “not nearly enough, but it’s a start”.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell said: “This new finance goal is an insurance policy for humanity, amid worsening climate impacts hitting every country.
“No country got everything they wanted, and we leave Baku with a mountain of work still to do. So this is no time for victory laps.”
The funding deal was clinched more than 24 hours into overtime, and against what felt like all the odds.
The talks were rocked from the start by the incoming presidency of climate denier Mr Trump, the moment Argentina’s team were recalled back to Buenos Aires by their right-wing president and a controversial letter that sent shockwaves through the United Nations.
Pic: AP
The fraught two weeks of negotiations pitted the anger of developing countries who are footing the bill for more dangerous weather that they did little to cause, against the tight public finances of rich countries.
A relieved Juan Carlos Monterrey Gomez, climate envoy for Panama, said there is “light at the end of the tunnel”.
Just hours ago, the talks almost fell apart as furious vulnerable nations stormed out of negotiations in frustration over that elusive funding goal.
They were also angry with oil and gas producing countries, who stood accused of trying to dilute aspects of the deal on cutting fossil fuels.
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Climate-vulnerable nations storm out of talks
The UN talks work on consensus, meaning everyone has to agree for a deal to fly.
A row over how to follow up on last year’s pledge to “transition away from fossil fuels” was left unresolved and punted into next year, following objections from Chile and Switzerland for being too weak.
A draft deal simply “reaffirmed” the commitment but did not dial up the pressure in the way the UK, EU, island states and many others here wanted.
Saudi Arabia fought the hardest against any step forward on cutting fossil fuels, the primary cause of climate change that is intensifying floods, drought and fires around the world.
Governments did manage to strike a deal on carbon markets at COP29, which has been 10 years in the making and will allow countries to trade emissions cuts.
‘Not everything we wanted’
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The UK’s energy secretary, Ed Miliband, said the deal is “not everything we or others wanted”, but described it as a “step forward”.
“It’s a deal that will drive forward the clean energy transition, which is essential for jobs and growth in Britain and for protecting us all against the worsening climate crisis,” he added.
“Today’s agreement sends the signal that the clean energy transition is unstoppable.
“It is the biggest economic opportunity of the 21st century and through our championing of it we can help crowd in private investment.”
Protesters at the summit in Baku. Pic: AP
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The Azerbaijan team leading COP29 said: “Every hour of the day, we have pulled people together. Every inch of the way, we have pushed for the highest common denominator.
“We have faced geopolitical headwinds and made every effort to be an honest broker for all sides.”
At least 20 people have been killed and 66 injured in Israeli strikes on central Beirut, Lebanese authorities have said.
Lebanon‘s health ministry said the death toll could rise as emergency workers dig through the rubble looking for survivors. DNA tests are being used to identify the victims, the ministry added.
The attack destroyed an eight-storey residential building and badly damaged several others around it in the Basta neighbourhood at 4am (2am UK time) on Saturday.
The central Basta neighbourhood in Beirut
The Israeli military did not warn residents to evacuate before the attack and has not commented on the casualties.
At least four bombs were dropped in the attack – the fourth targeting the city centre this week.
A separate drone strike in the southern port city of Tyre this morning killed two people and injured three, according to the state-run National News Agency.
The victims were Palestinian refugees from the nearby al Rashidieh camp who were out fishing, according to Mohammed Bikai, spokesperson for the Fatah Palestinian faction in the Tyre area.
Israel’s military warned residents today in parts of Beirut’s southern suburbs that they were near Hezbollah facilities, which the army would target in the near future. The warning, posted on X, told people to evacuate at least 500 metres away.
The army said that over the past day it had conducted intelligence-based strikes on Hezbollah targets in Dahiyeh, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, where Hezbollah has a strong presence. It said it hit several command centres and weapons storage facilities.
Pic: AP
Israel has killed several Hezbollah leaders in air strikes on the capital’s southern suburbs.
Heavy fighting between Israel and Hezbollah is ongoing in southern Lebanon, as Israeli forces push deeper into the country since launching a major offensive in September.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, at least 3,670 people have been killed in Israeli attacks there, with more than 15,400 wounded.
It has displaced about 1.2 million people – a quarter of Lebanon’s population – while Israel says about 90 soldiers and nearly 50 civilians have been killed in northern Israel.
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Meanwhile, six people, including three children and two women, were killed in the southern Gazan city of Khan Younis.
Some 44,176 Palestinians have been killed since the start of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count, but it has said that more than half of the fatalities are women and children.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on 7 October 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking another 250 hostage.
US envoy Amos Hochstein was in the region this week to try to end more than 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, ignited last October by the war in Gaza.
Mr Hochstein indicated progress had been made after meetings in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, before going to meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defence minister Israel Katz.
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