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.”
World
Putin not listed in Russian delegation for talks with Ukraine in Turkey and Trump also not attending
Vladimir Putin has not been listed in a Russian delegation expected to go to Turkey for talks on Thursday with Ukraine.
The Russian president signed an order on Wednesday detailing who would be in the delegation to Istanbul, including presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign minister Galuzin Mikhail Yuryevich, and deputy minister of defence Alexander Fomin.
On Sunday, Mr Putin had proposed direct negotiations with Ukraine to be held on Thursday “without any preconditions” and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had called on the Russian president to meet him in Istanbul.
Donald Trump will not go to Turkey to join the Russia-Ukraine talks either, a US official said after Mr Putin announced the Russian delegation. The US president said he was “thinking” of going to Turkey if Mr Putin would be there.
Mr Zelenskyy had said he would attend, but only if Mr Putin also attended.
“I am waiting to see who will arrive from Russia and then I will determine what steps Ukraine should take. The signals in the media so far are unconvincing,” he said in his nightly video address earlier.
He said Mr Putin “continues to strike Ukraine”, adding: “In fact, it is now more obvious to the entire world than at any other point during the full-scale war… that the only obstacle to establishing peace is the lack of a clear will from Russia to do so.”
The proposed meeting came after the “coalition of the willing” countries, including Britain, threatened Russia with fresh sanctions if it failed to take part in a 30-day ceasefire beginning on Monday.
Russia effectively rejected the proposal by instead calling for direct negotiations in Istanbul with Ukraine.
On Tuesday the Institute for the Study of War said Russia is “attempting to prolong negotiations to extract additional concessions from the United States and while making additional battlefield advances”.
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Canadians “weren’t impressed” by the decision of the UK government to offer Donald Trump an unprecedented second state visit to the UK, the country’s prime minister has told Sky News.
Sir Keir Starmer handed the invitation to the US president during a visit to the Oval Office.
The newly elected Liberal leader Mark Carney said that the invitation “cut across clear messages” that the Canadian government was trying to send to the White House in response to their threats against Canada’s sovereignty.
“I think, to be frank, they [Canadians] weren’t impressed by that gesture… given the circumstance. It was at a time when we were being quite clear about the issues around sovereignty.”
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Mark Carney speaking to Sky News’ Sam Washington
It comes as the Canadian prime minister has invited the King, who is Canada’s head of state, to open its parliament later this month in a “clear message of sovereignty”.
It is the first time the sovereign has carried out this function in nearly 50 years and Mr Carney says it’s “not coincidental”.
“All issues around Canada’s sovereignty have been accentuated by the president. So no, it’s not coincidental, but it is also a reaffirming moment for Canadians.”
The former Bank of England governor was re-elected after a campaign fought on the promise of standing up to American threats to Canadian statehood. He had refused to speak to Mr Trump until Canadian sovereignty was respected.
It followed Mr Trump threatening to make Canada the 51st state of the US.
Mr Carney justified making his first trip after winning re-election to the White House by stating Mr Trump had changed his intentions to annex Canada from an “expectation to a desire”.
“He was expressing a desire. He’d shifted from the expectation to a desire. He was also coming from a place where he recognised that that wasn’t going to happen.
“Does he still muse about it? Perhaps. Is it ever going to happen? No. Never.”
The high-stakes meeting in the Oval Office was not confrontational, with Mr Carney praising the president’s approach as “very on top of the essence of a wide range of issues” and “able to identify the points of maximum leverage, both in a specific situation but also in a geopolitical situation”.
A King’s tension between allies
Fractured geopolitical relations have produced an interesting phenomenon: two Commonwealth nations both deploying their head of state, King Charles, to manage the vagaries of Donald Trump.
For Canada, and its new prime minister, Mark Carney, the King is being unveiled at the opening of Parliament in Ottawa later this month as an unequivocal spectacle and symbol of sovereignty.
For the UK, Sir Keir Starmer is positioning the monarch as a bridge and has proffered a personal invitation from King Charles to the president for an unprecedented second state visit in order to facilitate negotiations over trade and tariffs.
This instrumentalisation of the crown, which ordinarily transcends politics, has created tension between the historically close allies.
Canadians view the UK’s red carpet treatment of a leader who is openly threatening their sovereignty as a violation of Commonwealth solidarity, while the British seem to have no compunction in engaging in high-level realpolitik.
The episode is emblematic of how pervasive disruptive American influence is and how extreme measures taken to combat it can aggravate even the most enduring alliances.
Since the meeting, tensions between the two countries have abated.
Further negotiations on trade and security are expected soon.
Given the deep economic integration of the two nations, neither side expects a deal imminently, but both sides concur that constructive talks have led to progress on an agreement.
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With greater goodwill between the two North American neighbours, Mr Carney also expressed optimism about Mr Trump’s efforts to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia.
The prime minister confirmed his view that the president was an “honest broker” and that his counterpart had been “helpful” in bringing momentum to a 30-day ceasefire between the warring nations.
Despite a reset in relations between the United States and Canada, Mr Carney remained circumspect.
His motto is: “Always plan for the worst.”
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And to that end, nothing is being taken for granted: “We do plan for having no deal, we do plan for trouble in the security relationship. We do plan for the global trading system not being reassembled: that’s the way to approach this president.”
World
‘Sixteen killed’ in strike on Gaza hospital as Israel says it hit ‘Hamas command centre below’
At least 16 people have been killed and 70 others were injured at a hospital in Gaza following an Israeli strike, according to the health ministry.
Nine missiles hit the European Hospital and its courtyard in the south of the Palestinian territory, officials said.
Israel said it had hit a “Hamas command centre” beneath the hospital in Khan Younis.
Hamas denies exploiting hospitals and civilian properties for military purposes.
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The scene after the European Hospital was partially damaged following Israeli airstrikes. Pic: Reuters
Earlier, a well-known Palestinian photojournalist died following a separate attack on the Nasser Hospital, also in Khan Younis, said the ministry.
Hassan Aslih had been accused by Israel of working with Hamas and was recovering from an earlier airstrike.
Aslih, who has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, was said by the Israelis to have recorded and uploaded footage of “looting, arson and murder” during Hamas’s 7 October 2023 attack into Israel that triggered the war in Gaza.
Aslih was one of two patients who died in Tuesday’s strike on Nasser Hospital, said the health ministry. Several others were wounded.
Mourners carry the body of Palestinian journalist Hassan Aslih. Pic: Reuters
Dozens of people were being treated on the third floor of the hospital building, where the missiles struck, Reuters said, quoting Ahmed Siyyam, a member of Gaza’s emergency services.
The Israeli military said it “eliminated significant Hamas terrorists” in Nasser Hospital, among them Aslih, who it said had “operated under the guise of a journalist”.
Footage showed heavy damage to one of the hospital buildings, including to medical equipment and beds inside.
At least 160 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the start of the war, according to the International Federation of Journalists.
Gazan officials accuse Israel of deliberately targeting journalists. Israel denies this and says it tries to avoid harm to civilians.
Aslih, who headed the Alam24 news outlet and had previously worked with Western news outlets, was recovering after being wounded last month in a deadly strike on a tent in the Nasser Hospital compound.
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Meanwhile, President Trump has spoken on the phone to Edan Alexander after he was released by Hamas on Monday, as part of ongoing efforts to achieve a permanent ceasefire with Israel.
The 21-year-old was believed to be the last living American hostage in Gaza.
Some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage in the 7 October attack on southern Israel, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s response has killed more than 52,000 Palestinians, according to local health officials, and destroyed much of the coastal territory. Gaza’s health ministry records do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
An aid blockade since March has left the population at critical risk of famine, according to the World Health Organisation, which warned on Tuesday that hunger and malnutrition could have a lasting impact on “an entire generation”.
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