Counseling? Not in Ukraine, Not Now.
Fourteen-year-old Daryan Bondarenko’s life changed forever on February 28, four days after the Russians invaded her native Ukraine. The story you’re about to read comes from a recent interview I had with her at a Bucha police station near Kyiv. She knew that an American journalist was visiting the police station, and she came in to tell her story.
“My father, stepmother and grandfather, and I had just left her godmother’s house in Bucha,” she begins. “However, just as we were pulling away from Godmother’s home, we came across a column of Russian military.”
Her father, she explained, wanted to avoid any kind of confrontation, so he backed the car up and started to turn onto a side street. “I don’t know why the Russians did this,” she continues, speaking rapidly. “Maybe they got scared, but they started shooting at us. It was machine gun fire.”
Her father was killed instantly. “My grandfather covered me with his body, but then the car caught fire. My grandfather jumped out of the car, and told me to come out and hide behind the car. My stepmother was still alive, and I could see that her face and chest were covered with blood. I could hear her making gurgling sounds. Blood was coming out of her mouth. Grandfather pulled her out of the burning car and dragged her to a wooden fence by the side of the road. She died there, moments later.”
As she told her story, Bondarenko’s voice changed. It became low, strangely rhythmical, almost as if she was reciting something. It felt as if she was on auto-pilot as she continued her story.
“Then they started shooting at me. I was hit in my arm and hip. I couldn’t run. I started crawling. It was toward Godmother’s house. Everything was on fire. My father’s clothes. The car. The grass. The wooden fence.”
Bondarenko said she started screaming, calling to her godmother, “I’m still alive, I’m still alive!”
Her godmother heard her, rushed out and took her back to the house. Neighbors wanted to get a nurse, but everyone was too afraid of the Russians. The neighbors bandaged her arm and hip with rags to stop the blood, and the next day, the Russians wanted to take her to a hospital in nearby Belarus.
The local priest knew that if she were taken to Belarus, the Russians would see to it that she never made it back to Ukraine. He negotiated with them, offering to drive her to a neighboring village for care. He pleaded with one Russian to radio to the other Russians to alert them that his car would be carrying a white flag, and to please not shoot at it.
However, Bonderenko remembers that the Russian wouldn’t agree to giving the car a safe passage until one of Bondarenko’s remaining relatives bribed him with a sim card for his phone.
The 14-year-old had surgery in the nearby town. Two weeks later the Red Cross transported her to a non-occupied area where Ukrainian soldiers picked her up and delivered her to other relatives.
These relatives had a message for her. “You have to live the lives of three people including your father, your stepmother and yourself.”
Katuzhanka looked brave and determined as she repeated her relatives’ message. However, it’s hard to imagine that trauma as severe as what she had endured wouldn’t leave lasting, debilitating scars.
I asked Irina Pryanishnikova from the Kyiv Region Police if Bonderenko would get counseling to deal with having watched three members of her family die in front of her. Pryanishnikova answered, “Unfortunately, there are millions of individuals who have endured similarly difficult situations. This is happening on such a scale that the chances of counseling for her are slim. She’s on her own.”
Harvard graduate Mitzi Perdue is a journalist and author of the award-winning biography of Mark Victor Hansen, the Chicken Soup for the Soul co-author. All royalties for this book will go to supporting humanitarian relief in Ukraine.
