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“We stopped counting days and nights. It’s been a blur.” Like many in Kharkiv, Vladlena Salnykova, the chief doctor of Kharkiv’s Children’s Neurological Hospital No. 5 pauses before answering questions about the timeline of horrific events that unfolded before her eyes starting February 24. Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, has been under intense shelling by Russian forces. Fighting has caused extensive damage in many residential areas. Most of its population of 1.8 million has fled, but an estimated 500,000 people remain in the city.
Before the shelling, a total of 190 children, from infants to just under age 18, were residents in the hospital or the children’s hospice unit, 1.5 kilometers away. When the shelling started, those who could be discharged were, and staff relocated the remaining children to the hospice’s basement. “Only children with the most severe conditions are left here now,” one of the nurses, Tatyana told me. Salnykova said, “We don’t have enough staff to cover two buildings, so we all moved here. [The hospice’s] head doctor and I are here 24/7. Our building was not hit yet, God has spared us so far.”
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