NewsFrom Liberation to loss: WWII veterans' final battle in Ukraine

From Liberation to loss: WWII veterans' final battle in Ukraine

Every year, to mark Victory Day, Vladimir Putin pays tribute to World War II veterans. At the same time, he is leading a brutal war in Ukraine, where veterans are dying. The portal Ważnyje Istorii recounts the stories of those who survived one war but not the other.

Sadyr Dżaparow, Vladimir Putin, and Emomali Rahmon during the Victory Day celebrations.

Images source: © PAP | PAP/EPA/RAMIL SITDIKOV/SPUTNIK/KREMLIN / POOL

Paulina Ciesielska

9 May 2024 11:22

One of those who experienced the horrors of World War II but could not survive Russia's invasion of Ukraine was 97-year-old Ivan Lysun from the Kharkiv region. At the mere age of 18, he was drafted to the front during World War II. He fought in the ranks of the Red Army, reaching Germany. In May 2022, Lysun miraculously escaped death but lost his home, which his father had built in his native village of Zolochiv. Unfortunately, a month later, the man died of heart failure, which the experienced stress might have contributed to - suggests the portal Ważnyje Istorii.

Another veteran whose story is described by the portal is 99-year-old Mykola Holub. As a child, he survived the Great Famine, and during World War II, he participated in the liberation of southern Ukraine and Moldova from German occupation. In June 2022, Holub was forced to flee his home, which had been in the crosshairs of Russian shelling for several months.

97-year-old Hryhorij Vaksman refused his family's pleas to leave Kharkiv despite the city being continuously bombarded by Russians.

Similarly, another resident of Kharkiv, 96-year-old Oleksandr Metaliczenko, who participated in the city's liberation from German occupation during World War II, behaves today. As reported by the portal, Metaliczenko "prays" that people do not die in the shelling and that the city is not destroyed. Ważnyje Istorii reports the stories of Metaliczenko and other veterans from Ukrainian media, including the Suspilne portal.

The Russian portal writes that Mariupol "in some sense repeated the history of the Leningrad siege". The city was besieged by the Russian army for several months, which brutally attacked it without regard for the civilians there.

96-year-old Mariya Korotkova died in a shelter in Mariupol, where there was a lack of medicine. 92-year-old Nina Shevchenko was killed when the building she was in with her family was hit by a Russian missile and caught fire. Valentina Shevchenko, at the age of 88, died in Mariupol from hunger and cold. As a child, she survived World War II, even though she was left alone without her mother.

96-year-old Borys Romanchenko, who survived German concentration camps, including Buchenwald, was killed in Kharkiv in March 2022 by a Russian missile.

91-year-old Wanda Objedkova, who survived the Holocaust, died in a basement in Mariupol, where she had been hiding from the war caused by Russia. At age 10, Objedkova survived the German occupation of Mariupol, hiding in the city's basements.