[News] Ukraine war: My nights are peaceful at last, after trauma of air raids

[BirSaNN]

When Russia invaded her country, Veronica Ahafonova played piano to drown out the sound of the explosions.

We first met the teenager in March when she and her mother were fleeing Kharkiv as refugees, leaving behind everything they knew. They were living in the dark in an overcrowded motel with the curtains shut tight in the hope that Russian bomber planes wouldn't see the building.

Like millions of Ukrainian children, Veronica's life changed forever when this war began.

Nika, as she likes to be known, told me then that she woke each day amazed that she and her family were still alive: stark words from a 15-year-old. She described rushing to a cramped, cold basement whenever the sirens howled to warn of a Russian attack, and called what she'd been through "very traumatising".

Ten months on, Nika is living in the UK and says she's finally able to sleep soundly again.

"I needed time to understand that now I'm in a safe place," she said, when we met up recently in England.

She's staying with a host family and studying for free at the prestigious Charterhouse school, where she's thriving. She now plays piano only for pleasure.

"I don't have air alarms every hour and I don't need to think about what if the next second a bomb is going to be near me," Nika says, although she still jumps when a door slams or there's fireworks.

"I don't think it will ever leave me because it's in my mind. But I hope it will."

Kharkiv, Nika's hometown, is close to Ukraine's northern border with Russia and was heavily shelled for months until Russian troops were forced out of the region in September.

Today, the suburb of Saltyvka is lined with the blackened ruins of giant apartment blocks, but in the city centre the rubble and shattered glass we found in March after multiple missile strikes have been cleared away.

Patriotic billboards all over town declare that "Kharkiv is working!" and the metro, where we last saw whole families sleeping on platforms and curled up inside train carriages, is now running again.

But residents are coping with a new problem: no electricity, heat or water for many hours at a time, as Russia targets Ukraine's power supply with its missiles in the middle of winter.

Only eight of Nika's 28 classmates are still in Kharkiv and they study remotely these days for safety. But their teacher, Maria, never left. She conducts classes online for students scattered all over the country and even abroad.

If the power goes, she switches to using the internet from her mobile phone, lights a candle, then carries on.

"Russia just doesn't know who we are. We're strong, we'll get through this," Maria tells me, although she becomes tearful talking about the pupils. "I just want to hug them," she admits.

link: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-64053061