Consider This from NPR - For Many In Ukraine, The Struggle Doesn't End With Liberation

Episode Date: November 10, 2022

As Russian forces have retreated in Ukraine, people in newly liberated towns and villages have been trying to pick up the pieces. But it's a process that can be long and painful.NPR's Kat Lonsdorf met a woman named Ludmilla, six months ago in the liberated town of Borodianka. Somehow, Ludmilla happened to know Kat's childhood neighbors in Wisconsin. She had stayed with them years ago. That random encounter stayed with Kat, so she checked back in with Ludmilla to see how she is doing.In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University performs breakthrough research every year, making discoveries that improve human health, combat climate change, and move society forward. More at iu.edu slash forward. Just last month, Russia announced it had formally annexed four regions in eastern Ukraine, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said the people of those regions would now be Russian forever. Now, on paper, the annexation included the entire region around the key city of Kherson. But now it looks like that annexation might not be forever after all, at least not in Kherson. Because this week, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu looked resigned as he announced a difficult decision on Russian TV. With Ukrainian forces closing in,

Shoigu ordered Russian troops out of the city of Kherson to the eastern bank of the Dnipro River. NPR's Jason Bobian explains just how big of a setback this was for Russia. This is the only regional capital that Russia has seized in this military campaign this year. Russian troops actually put up the Russian flag in Kherson on February 25th, one day after the invasion started. So losing Kherson, it's a huge embarrassment for Moscow. And if Ukraine does take back Kherson City, it comes on the heels of some other significant victories by Ukrainian troops, particularly rapid counteroffensives that took

huge swaths of the Kharkiv region in the east. But despite that major setback, he says, Russia's war in Ukraine is far from over. We can expect that Russia is going to dig in on the east bank of the river. There's already signs that they're doing that. And I should point out that some of the most intense fighting in the war right now, you know, not to downplay what's happening around Kherson because it's significant in the south, but some of the most brutal battles are happening right now in the east around Donetsk. And there's no sign of that easing up. Still, even as the war rages on in parts of Ukraine, people in recently liberated towns and villages have been able to celebrate joyful reunions. Like this one, between a mother and son, after Ukrainian forces regained control

of a village in the Kharkiv region. It was posted on Facebook in September. Consider this. As Russian forces have been pushed back in the south and east, some Ukrainians have been sifting through the rubble, trying to rebuild their lives. We'll check in on one woman who's still struggling with that painful process, months after her town was liberated. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Thursday, November 10th. T's and C's apply. named Lyudmila Boyko. Kat met her back in April when she was in Ukraine, reporting with a team for all things considered. They interviewed Lyudmila in the recently liberated town of Borodyanka. Lyudmila was sitting next to a crumpled apartment building as workers sifted through the rubble. She was waiting to see if the bodies of her sister and nephew would be pulled out.

They had been killed in a missile strike weeks earlier. I was so close with them that I don't even know how should I leave now. How should I leave in this place? It was a grim scene, but there was a moment of joy when, through sheer coincidence, they realized that Ludmilla knew Kat's childhood neighbors in Wisconsin and had stayed with them years ago. Mother, Casey, three daughter. Very nice.

Kathy. Yes. That's my neighbor. Wow. Kat and Ludmilla hugged. They took a picture together, and then they parted ways. But Kat, she kept thinking about Ludmilla, and she'll take it from here. To understand just how remarkable it was that Ludmilla, and she'll take it from here.

To understand just how remarkable it was that Ludmilla knew my neighbors, you have to first know that there are only six houses on my street. I grew up in the country, in a tiny town called Verona, just outside of Madison. Most people from my town have never been on my street. I wanted to know more about why Ludmilla was here. So last time I was home, I walked over to my neighbor Kathy Peelage's house. She's the one Ludmilla mentioned. Would you like a cup of tea or a glass of wine?

Kathy lives at one end of the street with her husband, Phil, and they have three now-grown daughters. These days, a Ukrainian flag flaps in their front yard. After I met Ludmilla back in April, I texted my mom the picture we took together, and she texted it to Kathy. I just cried. Kathy hadn't heard from Ludmilla in weeks at that point. To see that she's alive was just like unbelievable. Ludmilla first stayed with Kathy and her family more than 20 years ago. Kathy pulls out some scrapbooks. Here are all the kids that came that year. Here's Ludmilla. Ludmilla came as essentially a chaperone for a group of Ukrainian kids visiting Wisconsin.

Brodyanka is north of Kiev, not too far from Chernobyl. When the nuclear disaster happened in 1986, the wind blew radioactive material for miles, and Brodyanka was in that path. People continued living there, but there were health concerns, of course. So after the fall of the Soviet Union, the Bethel Lutheran Church here in Madison decided to partner with a community center in Brodionka that was opened specifically to help in the aftermath of Chernobyl. Kathy and her family were members of that church.

Ludmilla ran that community center. There was this belief that if we could get them out of the contaminated soil, we could, like, improve their health, right? Now, you know, the professors of nuclear medicine in Madison have clearly said this is not true. But the kids did need good dental care, so they focused on that. They called it Circle of Love. And Ludmilla eventually came to Wisconsin eight times over many years, bringing different groups of kids.

Oh, she's the one I started working with in 1996. Jackie Shonda ran the program and worked directly with Ludmilla. I met her at an outdoor mall in Madison. She says Ludmilla is great at finding and using resources. For example, when Ludmilla was here in Wisconsin, she started taking advantage of access to the university. She spent time with a number of psychologists through the university mostly. One thing Ludmilla does a lot at that community center in Brodyanka is counseling. And she wanted to learn more about trauma counseling.

This was around 2014, and war had not yet touched Sporodiyanka. But there was fighting in eastern Ukraine. The town was starting to get displaced people, soldiers coming back from the front lines. She wanted to help them. Jackie says that when the full-scale invasion happened earlier this year, Lyudmila was preparing for more of that same scenario. Refugees, war veterans. Jackie sent her extra money in February and Ludmilla invested in the community center. This is the word I get from her is thank you, thank you, thank you. We have rooms set up with cots so they can sleep and we may have this kitchen because of the money you sent and then three days later I get the picture that it's gone. That was the last Jackie

heard from Ludmilla. Three days into the war, a Russian bomb completely destroyed the community center. It wasn't much longer until the entire town was occupied. Ludmilla's sister and nephew died in a missile strike. And we met five weeks after that, in April, after Ukrainian forces liberated the town, while Lyudmila looked for their bodies. I went back to Brodyanka six months later, and in some ways, it looks completely different. Cars are back on the roads, rubble is cleared, kids are playing on playgrounds. Last month, these shops started working. We were so, so glad to see open doors, you know.

Tanya Soshka is a colleague of Ludmilla's. She points out things that have been fixed up. Roads, power lines, new shops. But right in the middle of it all, several high-rise apartment buildings are still crumpled, holes blasted through the middle. You can't forget what happened here, she says. It's literally right in front of you, all the time. Now it's easier a bit, but not very easy. Everyone is dealing with grief, she says. Trauma is woven into everyday life. The community center has moved into one of the only buildings not destroyed in the fighting. There are five employees packed in a room, and residents are constantly flowing in and out. And in one corner,

Ludmilla. As we come in, she gets up and gives me a big hug. Welcome. So good to see you. Take this situation under control because you know somebody will come and say, Ludmilla. Tanya points out it's rare to find Ludmilla without an appointment. And it's true. She has two cell phones, both ringing constantly. We sit down to talk. How are you?

More tired than the last time when we saw each other. More tired than after weeks of occupation and the deaths in her family. Lyudmila says their counseling services are in high demand. Everyone needs help. She says even counseling services are in high demand. Everyone needs help. She says even the most basic emotions are buried. You know, when you're outside and you hear somebody laugh, the first thing you think that there's something wrong with the person because it's not typical now to hear laughter.

And then she gets quiet. Her eyes fill up with tears. It's terrible, she says. She tells me she never found the bodies of her sister or nephew, despite a huge effort. I'm not living my life right now. It's maybe some kind of coping mechanism, I don't know. It feels like I'm living in a movie, she says. She knows she'll have to start her own healing at some point,

but right now, there are too many other people to help. Ludmilla's phone starts to ring again, another appointment. But before we leave, I hand over a gift I brought from Jackie in Wisconsin. It's something they requested specifically. A big, brightly colored parachute, like the kind you use in gym class as a kid. It's basically a giant piece of fabric. They had one before, but it was lost in the bombing. Thank you, thank you.

They unfurl it, waving it up and down like they will with the kids. See, Lyudmila says, a giant smile on her face. These are the emotions we've been missing. There is so much trauma here in Brodionka, and it'll take years, maybe lifetimes, to heal. But sometimes something as simple as a gift from an old friend, even one halfway around the world, can remind you that you're not alone

and make it all just a little more bearable. That was NPR's Kat Lahnstor. It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Elsa Chang.