As I walked the icy steps leading up to the observation deck above the Dnieper River, I could see Dr Yelizar in the distance. He had arrived at our meeting point ahead of time to take in the Kyiv skyline, the unfamiliar view of his new home city. I managed to catch his eye. Immediately he realised I had misjudged the weather: “Where is your hat? This is winter in Ukraine,” he said with a beaming smile, opening his arms for a hug. After the year he has endured it seemed surprising that he should be so concerned about my welfare.
He might not have cared so much a year ago, he conceded, but living in Ukraine during the invasion has forced people to find empathy, resilience, patriotism, love and even hatred where they didn’t know it existed. I have been in touch with Yelizar since February last year, shortly after I was sent out to cover the start of the invasion for ITV News. And I have returned to Ukraine to see how the people we encountered during those first few weeks have been shaped by the months that followed.
My colleagues and I have spent long periods in trenches, bunkers and shelled-out buildings during the past 12 months, but it is the people whose stories we have covered, like Yelizar, rather than the places, who have left the lasting memories.
He seemed less anxious than he was when we last saw him, late last summer. Back then, we drank tea together at his temporary apartment in Dnipro, a first step in the escape from the frontline for Yelizar, 31, his wife Valeria, 30, and their six-year-old daughter. He eventually moved to the capital where he has been working in a civilian hospital since autumn. But a few weeks ago he received his conscription letter — a call-up from the army. He has been told that he might have to go to the frontline as soon as next month to work as an army medic treating injured soldiers.
Waiting for instructions in Kyiv, Yelizar is making jokes in sub-zero temperatures, wearing the wardrobe of a veteran of Ukraine’s harsh winters. Pulling at his layers of clothing, he says wistfully, “I bought this in Mariupol.”
For me the name of his home town invokes images of the destroyed theatre and maternity hospital — and bodybags. But for Yelizar, his memories are of long weekend walks and the salty smell of the Sea of Azov — the Mariupol where he was raised and where he lived and worked until a few months ago.
“I remember the city when it was so, so beautiful,” he says. “It was a city of development, of new parks, new roads, new hospitals.”
But the people of Ukraine have been changed as much as its beautiful buildings. So I ask Yelizar how the person he is now compares with the man ITV News first met in Mariupol 12 months ago. “I lost my kindness. I made myself stronger. I am better (as) a doctor because I saw many deaths. I helped hundreds of people,” he says. “But inside, in my soul, they destroyed it forever.”
“They” are the Russians, who attacked Mariupol in the first hours of the invasion. Yelizar was called in to work on the wards as the assault began, joining a medical mission to save as many of the badly injured patients as they could.
I lost my kindness. I made myself stronger. Inside, in my soul, they destroyed it forever
“I came to my hospital and I saw thousands of people. They needed our help. And we came to help, to help treat patients nonstop. From the first day I saw panic, panic, all the citizens, they panicked.” But he and his team were not always successful. On the second day, a television news crew filmed him in the operating theatre trying in vain to save a six-year-old girl.
“We tried to give her a life,” he says. “But we couldn’t, we couldn’t do this. She was dead. And it was the biggest problem. After this girl died, I cried (for) hours.
“It is difficult for me to talk about this. Anytime I talk about this girl, about that day, I start to cry. It’s my own tragedy in life. One of the biggest tragedies in my life. Sometimes, like now, I remember and yes I want to cry.”
What happened to the girl and his inability to save her helped shape his decision to leave Mariupol after three weeks of war, in the hope of protecting his wife and daughter. “I saw my dead friends. I saw dead children. I tried to help the children, but they killed them for what, I don’t understand, for what?”
The mourning never ends — yet it feels like it has barely started. It has changed Yelizar — his hopes, his expectations. It has changed everything — for every Ukrainian.
I am in Ukraine for the sixth time since last February to try to assess the impact of the invasion. I started this project by studying military maps and satellite images. But during my conversation with Yelizar it became clear that I was using the wrong metrics. It’s his long silences when we discuss what it was like on the emergency ward in the first week of the invasion that say much more — the way his expression twists when I ask him about Russians.
The war in Ukraine has felt like a live experiment in the possibilities of human nature
“We hate these bastards, Russian bastards,” he says, acknowledging that he now feels a level of hatred he didn’t realise he was capable of one year ago.
“I had to explain to my daughter where to hide because Russian terrorists attack us. I don’t want to explain this. She started to cry. And I said, don’t cry my daughter… Daddy is near you.”
As we stroll near the banks of the river, a sudden chorus of air raid sirens sound. But no one around us seems to respond. Yelizar and everyone else just carry on with what they are doing. It is a reminder of the way Ukrainians have adapted to armed conflict. People who might once have dashed for cover seem unmoved by the warning of cruise missiles fired from Russian bases.
All year I have watched characters changing around me. Club DJs retraining as frontline doctors, investment bankers becoming charity volunteers, pessimists reinventing themselves as optimists. At times, the war in Ukraine has felt like a live experiment in the possibilities of human nature — played out over tens of thousands of square miles. Everywhere, people are surprising themselves with what they can do — their ability to fight, to care or to protect. Something changed for everyone on the morning of 24 February 2022.
It was not long after that Sonia Kudrin was told to pack her things. A 13-year-old girl with a beaming smile and a passion for family holidays in the countryside. But with Russian forces approaching Kyiv, Sonia’s parents Anton and Svetlana, both veterinary surgeons, decided that the family should leave their home in the suburbs. As they drove away, Russian troops opened fire. Anton and Svetlana and Sonia’s sister Polina, 11, and brother Semyon, five, were all killed. ITV News travelled with her to a hospital in Rome where doctors removed a bullet from her spine — she was told she might never be able to walk again. But she did.
Last month, we met Sonia again at a very different venue — an ice skating rink in her hometown which is still covered with decorations from the Orthodox Christmas. All around us families are enjoying the holiday.
We watched as Sonia laced up her iceskating boots — then, step by tentative step, she reached the ice. Clutching the railings at times, she began to skate, defying doctors.
“Sonia always says, ‘I’ll do it myself.’ She’s always had that character,” said her proud grandmother Svitlana, who had brought her to the rink. But her story is not only about defiance but trauma and tragedy too.
“She misses her brother and sister. She doesn’t show it but I can see it. I can see how she reacts when she hears the names Polina and Semyon. Something is happening to her at that moment. She remembers, but very cautiously.”
I have met so many resilient Ukrainians of all ages who have redefined what “wartime spirit” means. But while Sonia’s determination to get onto the ice tells one story, her silent grief tells another. After this year of change for Ukrainians, perhaps there will be decades of trauma ahead.
