[music]
Melissa Harris-Perry: It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry.
[music]
Joe Biden: Russian military has begun a brutal assault on the people of Ukraine. Without provocation, without justification, without necessity, Putin is the aggressor. Putin chose this war, and now he and his country will bear the consequences.
Melissa Harris-Perry: It's been a year since Russian President Vladimir Putin launched the brutal invasion against Ukraine, a country that borders nations from NATO and the European Union. For Russia, Europe, and the United States the stakes remain high. On Tuesday, Putin addressed Russia's parliament and top officials in Moscow.
Vladimir Putin: I'm addressing you at a very difficult will become time, dramatic changes in the world, great historical changes that will determine the future.
Melissa Harris-Perry: While the future of geopolitics is still uncertain, one young girl has taken it upon herself to tell the stories of children caught in the war.
Yeva Skalietska: Hello, my name is Yeva Skalietska, and I'm 12 years old.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Yeva Skalietska's diary begins on her 12th birthday, just a handful of days before the invasion that displaced Yeva and her grandmother. Now 13, Yeva and her grandmother are one of 8 million refugees who fled to neighboring countries across Europe. We spoke to Yeva in October about her diary, which she transformed into a book, You Don’t Know What War Is: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine.
Yeva Skalietska: Everyone knows the word war, but very few people understand what it truly means. You might say that it's horrible and frightening, but you don't know the scale of where it brings. When you suddenly find you have to face heat, you feel totally lost, walled in by fright and despair, all of your plans are suddenly interrupted by distraction. Until you've been there, you don't know what war is.
Melissa Harris-Perry: When we last spoke to Yeva, she was coming home from school, and it was, as she put it, "Just an ordinary day in Ireland".
Yeva Skalietska: Today in Ireland was actually ordinary day, but not for Ukraine and not for my city.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Tell me about the window in your grandma's apartment.
Yeva Skalietska: This window was looking towards the Russian water, and we lived in the end of the city, so we could see the field. First day when the war started, I saw my grandma near the window that she was looking toward the Russian border, how missiles was flying, and it was so terrifying.
Melissa Harris-Perry: What did you do to try to feel safe?
Yeva Skalietska: The first day of war, I didn't feel safe, but it was a big tension in my spirit. Everybody had tension, and we were so worried what will be next. We didn't know what to do in the situation. In the basement, we were trying to play some games with children from other apartments. We try just to don't think about explosion and just try to play.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Before the invasion, were you somebody who ever thought about war?
Yeva Skalietska: Before the invasion, we just had rumors about the war, but nobody didn't believe that. We just thought, "Oh, maybe it is just rumors," so nothing would happen and we'll continue to live a normal life.
[music]
Melissa Harris-Perry: We're going to take a quick pause right here. Don't go anywhere. More of The Takeaway in just a moment. It's The Takeaway. I'm Melissa Harris-Perry, and we're back with our conversation with Ukrainian refugee turned-author, Yeva Skalietska. Before the break, Yeva's life was about the change forever. Let's listen back to that conversation now. I know you take us through each day, and on day nine, you and your grandmother made it to a school gym. Can you tell me who you met?
Yeva Skalietska: There's this person who wanted to speak with me, and he wanted to talk with me, but I wasn't ready. Then my grandmother introduced me. She said that I wrote a diary since first days of war. They started to interest it, and they made first report into Channel 4. It was the first time that I shared what was in my diary.
Melissa Harris-Perry: The reporter from Channel 4 helped you to leave Ukraine for Ireland. Is that right?
Yeva Skalietska: Yes, they proposed us to go to France or Ireland, but Ireland was really good opportunity because the people here speak English, and I speak English not so bad, so we decided to go to the Ireland.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Yeva, you speak English beautifully. You've talked about your friends a couple of times with me, and you write about them a lot in the book. Why does that matter telling your friends stories?
Yeva Skalietska: I think that's important as well to hear other voices from children that lived through, and sometimes they even describe the same details as me. For example, when it was seventh day of the Russian invasion, my friend, she described how the drone were flying and made circle dropping the bombs, as I described it as well the same.
For me, it was really important to know their feelings because we just could share because we couldn't keep this in our soul because it would be just damage. I think, of course, it's important that the world will hear my story, will hear our stories, and maybe the world will understand even a little bit how child live through the war and what child feels when starts war.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Yeva, I know about two months after the war started, someone offered to go back and get some things that were left behind. What did you want back?
Yeva Skalietska: I asked him to just take away some stuff like, for example, some clothes. For me, it was mostly important just for myself. I was oil paints that my granddad, he gifted me in New Year. For me, it was, of course, important that this long pink cat now is survived and she's in safe place now.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Yeva, do you dream at night about home?
Yeva Skalietska: Actually, I really miss home, but I know that there is so danger there in forests and in the rivers, in the road, there's bomb everywhere. It's dangerous. My apartments are destroyed and we are nowhere to back. I really hope that when everything will rebuild and when Ukraine will be safe, I really hope to back and see my friends, and I really, really hope that the war will stop someday, very soon.
Melissa Harris-Perry: Yeva Skalietska, author of You Don't Know What War Is: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine. Thank you for talking with us, Yeva.
Yeva Skalietska: Thank you very much.
Copyright © 2023 New York Public Radio. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use at www.wnyc.org for further information.
New York Public Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline, often by contractors. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of New York Public Radio’s programming is the audio record.
