In the West, when we hear news that an area in Ukraine has been liberated, we likely feel a short sense of relief: but we don’t grasp the full extent of what this means. In reality, the experience of being occupied by the Russian invaders is utterly nightmarish. It was for Galyna Matyoshko.
It involved the murder of one son and the permanent injury of her other son. Her older son has had 18 surgeries and will never completely recover. For Matyoshko, this nightmare will likely follow her for the rest of her life.
It began in late February of last year. At 2:00AM in her home in Bucha, Matyoshko awoke to a loud, terrifying hammering on her front door. Still in her night clothes, she opened the door and saw a group of Russian soldiers.
"Where is your husband?" they demanded.
Matyoshko's husband had died years ago, but as she later learned, had he been there, he would have been killed.
As a community leader, her husband had been on the Russians' murder list. The Russians were systematically looking for community leaders who might lead any future resistance. The invaders' murder list included all the community leaders in Bucha, including politicians, police, priests and teachers.
Since Matyoshko was a widow living alone, the Russians didn't see her as a threat. However, 15 soldiers took up quarters in her one-story house, and she was forced to spend almost 33 days living in her closet-size basement with no light, heat, or information about other family members, including her two sons. She hid in her basement, terrorized.
For food, she'd creep upstairs in the middle of the night to look through the pantry, careful not to disturb the sleeping Russians nearby. She describes feeling like a mouse stealing from her own kitchen. For the most part, the Russians didn't interact with her. But one day, they did.
She was sitting as usual in the dark on a milk crate in her basement. A Russian came down and put a pistol to her head, demanding, “Where is Zelensky?”
Of course, she had no idea. She asked the man, "Why are you here?" The unsatisfying answer came back, "Because we need to teach Zelensky a lesson. We will chase Zelensky out, then we'll have the police here and restore order, and you will have a peaceful, normal life."
"I don't understand why you came here to kill us," she answered. "You have your own country. And what about the Russian soldiers who are killed? Don't their mothers care? Don't they grieve for their sons?"
The Russian didn't answer. Like a marionette, he seemed so programmed that he could not process her questions.
On March 31, 2022, The Ukrainian Army liberated Bucha. Yet Matyoshko's nightmare continued.
When she emerged from the basement she had been hiding in, she immediately sought answers about the fates of her two sons. She learned that ten days earlier, one of her sons had been ferrying women and children to safety outside of Hostomel, when he encountered a group of Russians. The soldiers sprayed his car with bullets. He narrowly survived.
Just days later, she learned that her other son had been tortured and executed by Russian soldiers in an attempt to get information about Ukrainian resistance leaders. Most of the civilians they interrogate genuinely have no information to share. On April 11th, his body was found in a mass grave with hundreds of other victims.
Matyoshko then had the agonizing job of telling her surviving son this news as he lay in a hospital bed, gravely wounded from the assault of bullets.
Months later I sat with her in Ukraine on my most recent visit as she recounted this nightmare to me. Crying and choking on her tears, she said, "The world must know what the Russians do to us, and this must never, ever happen again."
The world under the Russians looks like Matyoshko and her family's nightmare of living in the hell of occupation. As we in the West seek to negotiate peace, we must remember that a ceasefire leaves occupiers at the mercy of the opposition — an outcome we must not accept, and a fate we cannot in good conscience impose on the brave citizens of Ukraine.
Harvard graduate Mitzi Perdue is a writer, speaker, and author of the award-winning biography of Relentless, the story of Mark Victor Hansen, the Chicken Soup for the Soul co-author. All royalties for this book will go to supporting humanitarian relief for Ukraine.