Our mothers need you
Six-year-old Renat and 10-year-old Varvara were living in Mariupol — the city wiped from the face of the Earth by Russian bombing — when they were sent to an orphanage in Russia. They were torn from their mother, who had been taken prisoner.
Desperate, Renat and Varvara’s grandmother knocked on every door, searched every inch of land to find her missing loved ones. While their mother was eventually brought back to Ukraine via a prisoner swap, it took nine months and the assistance of the Ukrainian authorities for the grandmother to bring back her grandchildren. She even crossed enemy lines to rescue them.
What did their mom feel during those months? What did the children feel, as the grandmother persevered to reunite the family?
This is the story of women of Ukraine right now. More than 19,000 of our children are being held captive in Russia. Their families are tormented by uncertainty.
Since the beginning of Russia’s brutal fullscale invasion, the mothers of Ukraine have — as caregivers, first responders, medics, soldiers and breadwinners — fought for the survival of their families and their country. They are part of a fight for the survival of the democratic world order.
It is a fitting story to tell on Mother’s Day, when there is an important message I am ready to scream out loud: We need the help of the whole world to set these children free. One Ukrainian mother may be powerless, but thousands and millions of us standing together can succeed.
Some mothers in Ukraine have turned their pain into action. When Natalya Makovetska’s son was killed on the front line, she joined the army herself. There are more than 60,000 women in the Ukrainian army, even though enlisting is voluntary for women.
Other mothers are widening their families to protect children who have lost their own parents and homes. Tetiana Yurychko has fostered 10 children, including 3-year-old Bohdan. It is not easy being a foster mother during a time of war. It’s not easy to take so many children to the bomb shelter every time the air-raid sirens wail.
But as Tetiana told me, “Every child should have a family.” That’s why the Olena Zelenska Foundation is building homes for such large foster families. So that all children can have a home, a family, a mother.
Another story that comes to mind as I write to you from Kyiv is about another side of this war for mothers but ends less happily.
Two months ago, the bodies of two neighbors — friends — were recovered by rescuers in the aftermath of a Russian strike on their home in the strategic port city of Odessa.
The first responders found Anna Gaidarzhy and Tetiana Kravets cradling their newborns in their arms. They had tried to use their bodies to shield 7-month-old Liza and 4-month-old Timofey from the deadly blow of a Russian missile. Their older, surviving children are orphaned now.
One of the most difficult challenges for parents in Ukraine today is the feeling of being powerless. Of not being able to protect your children physically or emotionally.
Now in Ukraine, every mother must steel themselves against the question, “Mom, are we going to die today?” when the air-raid alarm sounds in their city, sometimes multiple times a day. What can a mom do when she can do nothing? When she scared herself? How can you talk to your child about the threat so that they grow up without trauma?
We are trying to fight this growing mental health crisis. The program “Are you okay?” was created to enable a future where, hopefully, both parents and children can one day honestly answer that question with: “I’m okay.” It’s aimed at preventing children from remaining “children of war” for the rest of their lives.
Just like most moms in Ukraine, I have an air-raid app on my phone that makes haunting sounds when the alarm goes off. And like all moms, I am worried that only a part of Ukraine’s children go to schools because of the attacks, and even those children at school frequently must study in underground bomb shelters.
Talking about myself is the hardest thing to do. But my only recipe for being a mom during the war is to be sincere and an example of love and care. It is to teach my children the need to care for others because that is what we are all holding on to through the war. It is about hoping that the war will remain just an episode in the lives of our children. That they will enjoy normal lives after it to erase that trauma.
And so my request today is that you remember these stories. Share them. Demand our children be returned to Ukraine.
Every Ukrainian mom today is a part of a great wall holding off Russian aggression against the world.
There are missile fragments and bullets in their hearts, and there are children behind their backs — and not just their own children.
That’s because, in a civilized world, there are no other people’s children.