“My most beautiful memories are destroyed”, regrets a soldier who has not seen his daughter for six months

Bakhmout, Avdiïvka, Vouhledar, Kupiansk… So many battles for small pieces of territory in eastern Ukraine and fighting of incredible violence, almost hand-to-hand in the city center of Bakhmout for example, and heavy artillery in the trenches. The soldiers die there, by the dozens, but the Ukrainian authorities do not communicate on their losses. And even less on the age, often very young, of these victims.

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The hardest thing for these soldiers is, perhaps, not seeing their child grow up. Anton, father of a little girl, has been mobilized since February 28, 2022: “Her name is Valéria,” he slips. She was one year old when he left for the front. Since the start of the war, he has been fighting close to enemy lines in the Kreminna region. He has only seen his baby once: it was during a short one-week leave, six months ago. “All those moments of happiness, going for a walk, playing with my daughter… They no longer exist. They have flown away. The most beautiful memories are destroyed”he confides to franceinfo.

“Before, I thought I was living in Europe”

Like Anton, Yaroslav drags his spleen through the streets of Sloviansk. This doctor, integrated into a battalion of tanks, dreamed of discovering the world. In April, it will be a year since he left the Donbass. And since then “House [lui] lack” : “Before, I thought I would live in Europe, in Spain for example, in France or in Italy. The war changed my outlook, testifies Yaroslav. Junderstood that I was Ukrainian and that I wanted to live here”.