Recent past...
From FaceBook post 11.3.25 by Volodymyr Vlad Kunko
I want to remember this and keep this photo here.
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March 2022 Kharkiv, Ukraine
This is not 1941 – it’s March 2022, Kharkiv. I turned a color photo into black and white.
My colleague, along with her daughter and little granddaughter, took a train like this one after spending several days at the Kyiv railway station.
Everything here is told from her words, exactly as she described it.
… Evacuation trains from Kyiv departed overcrowded, tense, and silent.
Confused, frightened children, nervous animals, tired and exhausted people. Some were lucky to find a seat, others simply collapsed onto the floor in the aisles and vestibules. Few belongings – yet they took up all the space that remained.
As the train pulled away from the station, the lights inside almost immediately went out. From near the doors, someone quietly passed along instructions: no phones, no bright lights, no internet connection, and God forbid – no geolocation. Everyone obediently dimmed their screens.
Darkness. Silence. The train crept carefully through equally dark fields and villages. Sometimes it paused, sometimes it jolted forward.
The children began to fuss – cartoons, bathroom, candy … There was nowhere to walk, and reaching the toilet was nearly impossible. But everyone understood, tucking in their legs, trying to make room. Parents did their best to calm the little ones, but as soon as one end of the car grew quiet, the other side woke up again.
An hour passed. Then another. By the normal schedule, they should already have been near Vinnytsia. They were told they wouldn’t reach Vinnytsia for at least two more hours – and there might not even be a stop. Some tried to protest, but they were quickly hushed. The children fell asleep. It became hot and stuffy. Boring. Frightening. They wanted to drink, but remembered – there would be no easy trips to the toilet.
Lights appeared ahead – Vinnytsia. The train sped through without stopping. The next possible stop: Khmelnytskyi. No one knew when they would get there.
Time dragged slowly. The children woke, and the cycle began again.
More lights ahead. The train slowed, the cabin lights flickered on. Everyone squinted, pulled out their phones, tried to check what was happening.
They arrived at a station. A voice announced a 5-minute stop. Some people frantically grabbed their things, their children, their cats – pushing toward the exit. They jumped onto the platform, but the car didn’t get any emptier.
Suddenly, a huge checkered market bag was thrown into the vestibule, then another two, and finally two women dragged in a fourth.
People began to grumble – “Where are you putting all that? There’s no room as it is!”
Someone replied, “Maybe there’s an animal inside, don’t start with them now.”
The women paid no attention. With quick, practiced motions, they opened the bags and began tossing small packages into the hands of those nearby.
“Quickly, pass them down! Three minutes left!”
People obediently passed them along. One bag empty, then another, and another.
Those still half-asleep tried to understand what was being handed to them.
One of the women shouted into the car:
— “Are there small children here?”
— “Yes!”
— “How many?”
— “About twenty.”
She opened the last bag and shook out more packages.
– “Pass them to the mothers!”
And through the car it rippled like a wave: “Pass them to the mothers, pass them to the mothers …”
The train jerked forward. One woman quickly gathered the empty bags, the other tossed the remaining packages onto the floor, and both jumped back out onto the platform.
“Liuda, water!”
Two crates of water were thrown into the vestibule just as the train started moving.
When people came to their senses, they began to open the packages they had been handed.
Each one contained three oatmeal cookies, a small cheese sandwich, a sandwich with butter and sausage, an apple, two chocolate candies, and a few “rachky” (caramel sweets).
The packages meant “for the mothers” contained a couple of diapers and three packs of baby food.
The lights went out again. Silence – only the rustle of candy wrappers and whispers asking for water.
Someone said the next stop would be Ternopil – but maybe there wouldn’t be a stop at all.
The dark train crept on through the dark fields and villages.
— Anastasia Haridzhuk
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Sharing with Sepia Saturday
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“This year,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, “many Ukrainians are not at home — and some no longer have a home. But Russia cannot bomb or occupy what matters most: our Ukrainian heart, our faith in one another, and our unity.”
Zelensky contrasted Christmas music with the sounds of drones and missiles — the “noise of evil” that authoritarian power brings when it tries to crush a democratic nation by force.
On Christmas Eve, Russia again launched mass attacks — waves of Shahed drones and missiles. Zelensky framed the assault as the work of a regime with “nothing in common with Christianity — or anything human.”
2025
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Now, February 2026, a Norwegian member of the Nobel Committee has brought Zelensky's name into consideration for the Peace Prize.
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By Ukrainian artists, Anya Stasenko and Slava Leontiev
Subjects of the movie, Porcelain War. It shows actual videos of the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
Please understand the importance of The Ukraine to all of Europe.
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