in Ukraine, anxiolytics to hold after eight months of Russian strikes

“Here is the destroyed building, and in the middle of the courtyard, what remains of a store: they were civilians, they slept peacefully during the night.” Igor is head of a military unit in Mykolaiv, a Ukrainian city located about ten kilometers from the front, in Kherson, and pounded for eight months by the Russian army. He wants to show this neighborhood gutted four days ago by two Russian missiles.

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“I live next door !adds Olena, a neighbor, who could not leave and who had to learn to live with these bombardments. I had the impression that it had fallen on my head, the strike was very strong… What stress!

“I take medicine for my heart and to control my blood pressure, but my hands are shaking all the time, even in quiet moments.”

“These stressful situations are morally very difficultcontinues Olena. It’s hard to see all that.” Olena gave up quitting Mykolaiv. She explains that she is three years away from retirement, that she has found work here. So she stayed. “You never know if you’ll wake up, she sighs, exhausted. It depends on the will of God. Some missiles fall before the sirens wail and… it’s God who decides.”

At the foot of the building, Vladimir lost his groceries, pulverized by a missile. “I have no choice, I have to stay here: I have other stores in town and I have no other places to go.” So, to bear the permanent threat, he takes pills. “Sure that we consume anxiolytics! We all swallow it! My whole family uses it. This medicine, you have to take it three times a day, it’s prescribed by the doctor: it calms you down and it restores your morale.”

Like his neighbors, Vladimir did not hear to patch up his store. Rebuild at all costs.