The Human Cost of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine

Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine upended daily life for millions, affecting families, communities and entire cities. Since then, ordinary people, young children, teenagers, parents and grandparents have been caught in the chaos. In this article, you will read the stories of a few of them. These are real testimonies from people across Ukraine. Their experiences were documented by The Reckoning Project.

An Overview of the Reckoning Project

The Reckoning Project was started to document and preserve first-hand testimonies of war crimes committed during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This project consists of journalists, lawyers and researchers working on the ground to preserve the truth and seek justice. The individuals in these accounts come from a variety of backgrounds and range in age from young children to retirees. Some were injured or displaced, while others lost loved ones or were taken captive and subjected to abuse. These stories serve not only as evidence for future legal proceedings but also as the human voices behind the conflict. The following present summaries of a selection of testimonies collected by The Reckoning Project.

Trapped in a Basement in Yahidne

The small town of Yahidne is located in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region. In early 2022, Russian troops forced nearly 370 civilians into the basement of a local school. This group included babies, children, and elderly people. The soldiers had taken over the building for their headquarters, confining entire families in dark, overcrowded and unsanitary conditions with very little access to food, water, or medical care.

Olha Menialio, a Yahidne resident, stated that “the smell of sweat and breathing… It was unbearable down there”. Over several weeks, more than a dozen people died in the school. In one chilling act of remembrance, survivors carved the names of the deceased into the walls of the basement. “People died at night and in the morning. We’d cover the body, and the person would lie there until the morning. And then in the morning we’d ask to take them out,” recalled Tamara Klymchuk, another Yahidne resident.

A Child Separated from His Mother

On March 24, 2022, a young boy was severely injured when shrapnel from a nearby explosion struck his eye. This explosion occurred in Mariupol, in the region of Donetsk. After the shelling had stopped, he and his mother turned to Ukrainian forces for help and were taken to a military hospital, where they stayed for about two weeks. When Russian forces took control of the hospital, both the mother and her son were captured. They were taken to the village of Bezimenne, another city in Donetsk, and separated. His mother was reportedly subjected to interrogation, while the boy was handed over to two people connected to the Novoazovsk Service for Children. This organization is a municipal agency in the Russian-occupied Novoazovsk area of Donetsk. This organization is not part of any internationally recognized children’s rights NGO and is involved in forcibly transferring Ukrainian children to Russia, as well as separating them from their parents. It is a local administrative body under Russian control. The boy was moved from a hospital in Novoazovsk to another in Donetsk, where he overheard talk of being sent to an orphanage. Fortunately, some of the doctors helped him get in touch with his grandmother, who eventually came to Donetsk in late June 2022 to bring him home. The boy and his grandmother are the key witnesses in this case. The individuals involved in transferring him, including two staff from the Novoazovsk children’s service and the head of the children’s service for the self-declared and internationally unrecognized Donetsk People’s Republic are named as the alleged perpetrators.

Horror Behind Hospital Walls in Snihurivka

In the small town of Snihurivka in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv Oblast, Russian forces occupied the local hospital from March 2022 to October 2022, turning it into a site of terror and control. Natalia Dvoretska, chief nurse at Snihurivka Hospital, describes that “they came and surrounded the whole hospital along the perimeter. They formed a human chain and surrounded the entire place. They were everywhere, in the stairwell, in the hall. One side of the building and another one. They placed submachine gunners. They said during the first search, ‘leave the place, employees go to one side, the patients to the other one’.

Another female hospital employee in her 50s, who remained on duty throughout the occupation, witnessed a harrowing wave of atrocities, with civilians arriving with wounds from beatings, torture marks, and evidence of rape.

A Military Doctor’s Captivity and Courage

On April 3, 2022, a Ukrainian military doctor and two fellow soldiers were captured by Russian forces while trying to leave the occupied village of Chelburda, part of the city of Kherson,. The next day, the doctor was taken to the Nova Kakhovka police station, where he spent four months in detention. During that time, he treated nearly 100 other detainees, most of them civilians, including a teenage girl who had been sexually assaulted. On August 19, 2022, he was transferred to Sevastopol, where he stayed until mid-September of that year. He was then moved to a penal colony in Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, in Russia’s Rostov region. The Reckoning Project documented that he witnessed disturbing and inhumane treatment of both Ukrainian soldiers and civilians. After more than a year in captivity, he was finally released on April 26, 2023, through a prisoner swap and returned to Ukraine.

Truth in the Face of War

These four stories, each difficult in its own way, show what war looks like for the people who experience it. Behind every headline and statistic is real life. The Reckoning Project works to ensure these stories are preserved. By collecting and sharing testimonies like these, they aim to maintain the truth and hold perpetrators accountable. These stories highlight that justice begins with listening and remembering.