Yuliya Zolotariova, 51, has described the horror of life in Russian-occupied Mariupol, where dead bodies lay untended and clean water was impossible to find. Now in Kyiv, she recounted how her family fled after her mother was killed in a missile strike.
“Dead bodies everywhere. People were lying near every house. No one took them away,” she said. She explained that with no rubbish collection since the war began, conditions are ripe for a cholera outbreak. Residents resorted to drinking water from boilers and a destroyed swimming pool.
Her daughter Anastasiya, 26, who had moved to Kyiv a year earlier, helped organise their escape. But they could not save Anastasiya’s grandmother, Valentyna Polishuk, 80. She died on 21 March when a missile struck their apartment block, collapsing the basement where she sheltered.
Yuliya recalled the attack: “I thought there was an earthquake. Everything was trembling. … It was insanely scary.” She left her mother with documents while she sought help, but the basement collapsed. “There was no way to save them. It was hell.” Eleven residents, including children, died.
Now in the capital, the family mourns three generations lost to the war. “All this because they think we Ukrainians shouldn’t exist,” Anastasiya said. Meanwhile, Russian forces continue to occupy Mariupol, painting over its welcome sign with the Russian flag and erecting a billboard declaring “Russia is here forever.”
