An residence constructing within the metropolis of Sumy after Russia struck it with a Shahed drone early this yr. “We want extra air protection, we want extra every little thing,” mentioned Anton Svachko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament from the town.
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Anton Shtuka for NPR
SUMY, Ukraine — That horrible Sunday retains replaying in Natalia Tsybulko’s head. The large explosions. The frantic calls to seek out her daughter. The phrases from her son-in-law that shattered her life.
“‘Mother, Olena is now not with us’,” Tsybulko recalled him saying when he referred to as, his voice ragged. “He was holding her physique in his arms.”
Olena Kohut, her 46-year-old daughter, was killed in a Russian missile assault right here in April. She was the organist of the native philharmonic and one thing of a celeb in Sumy, a northern Ukrainian regional capital with a historical past of music and resistance, about 15 miles from the Russian border.
“You suppose you have been hardened by this conflict, it has been occurring so lengthy,” Tsybulko says. “After which it takes the very gentle of your life.”
Classically skilled singer and voice trainer Natalia Tsybulko gazes at a portrait of her daughter, Olena Kohut, the regional philharmonic’s organist soloist, who was killed in a Russian missile assault in Sumy in April.
Joanna Kakissis/NPR
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Joanna Kakissis/NPR
Like many Ukrainian cities, Sumy has been scarred by conflict. It noticed heavy combating early within the full-scale invasion and has, within the final yr, develop into a frequent goal of Russian drones, missiles and guided bombs. Now, Ukraine’s prime normal, Oleksandr Syrsky, says a minimum of 50,000 Russian troops have massed on the opposite facet of the border, although Ukraine has to this point managed to thwart them.
“You are alive!”
Sumy sits on the banks of the Psel River, and even now, regardless of common assaults, locals fill the leafy riverside promenade when the climate is heat and sunny. They used to flock to music festivals on Bach and brass bands earlier than the conflict. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion, lots of Sumy’s authorities fled, and residents defended the town on their very own.
“We’re pleasant however powerful,” mentioned performing mayor Artem Kobzar. “We do not again down.”
Within the final yr, Kobzar mentioned, the town of Sumy has develop into a magnet for many who reside in larger Sumy — villages on the Russian border, the place assaults are extra frequent. Newspaper writer Natalia Kalinichenko is from Biliopillia, a village within the area lower than 4 miles from the Russian border. Kalinichenko now lives part-time in Sumy, although the newspaper she runs remains to be delivered to these remaining within the village.
Newspaper writer Natalia Kalinichenko holds up copies of two newspapers from Sumy area’s border villages, now underneath fixed Russian assault. “In lots of villages alongside the border, there may be usually no electrical energy or web,” she mentioned. “And the printed copy of a newspaper is commonly the one supply of data for folks.”
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Anton Shtuka for NPR
“In lots of villages alongside the border, there may be usually no electrical energy or web,” she mentioned. “And the printed copy of a newspaper is commonly the one supply of data for folks.”
The area of Sumy borders Russia’s Kursk area. Final summer season, Ukraine launched a shock incursion into Kursk. The operation was meant to distract Russia and pull Russian troops from weak sections of the japanese frontline. As Russian troops slowly clawed again most of Kursk, assaults on Sumy – and its regional capital, Sumy metropolis – elevated.
In a single assault in late January, Russian drones hit an residence complicated in an in a single day assault, killing 9 folks and injuring 13. Smoke and mud crammed the air as shocked residents ran out of the damaged constructing, bundling their cats and canine inside their coats and bathrobes, and calling their neighbors.
Emergency staff attempt to entry a crushed residence within the metropolis of Sumy hit by an Iranian-designed assault drone launched by Russia. The assault early this yr killed 11 folks and injured 14.
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“You are alive!” one girl screamed in aid into her cellular phone.
Anton Svachko, a member of Ukraine’s parliament from the town, drove to the scene instantly after he heard the information.
“We want extra air protection, we want extra air protection models, we want extra every little thing,” he informed NPR, rubbing his eyes as he surveyed the harm.
Standing subsequent to him was the performing mayor, Kobzar, who comforted two siblings who could not discover their family and a household whose house was destroyed.
“The folks whose properties have been struck, the very first thing they ask me is, ‘how shortly can my house be rebuilt?'” Kobzar mentioned.
The performing mayor of Sumy, Artem Kobzar, talks to residents of an residence complicated hit by a Russian drone strike early this yr.
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Anton Shtuka for NPR
Volodymyr Silvanovskyi, a 63-year-old customs official, shook his head after he came upon his neighbors, a pair of their 60s, had been killed, crushed inside their very own residence. As he ran out, he noticed their complete residence had caved in.
“We keep as a result of we do not have wherever to go,” he mentioned, his voice breaking. “We’ve poured our lives into these properties.”
On the time of the strike, President Trump had lately been inaugurated, and Valentina Taran, a 65-year-old retiree who lived within the residence complicated, was hopeful. She had grown disillusioned with the Biden administration’s strategy to Ukraine, which she described as “serving to us simply sufficient to outlive however not way more.” She mentioned she anticipated Trump to be extra decisive.
“I simply want he may cease this conflict,” she mentioned, “however I do not know if he is aware of how.”
Emergency staff exterior an residence complicated within the metropolis of Sumy that was hit in a Russian drone strike early this yr.
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Anton Shtuka for NPR
An ally turns
The morning after the strikes, the newsroom of Cukr, a neighborhood on-line journal targeted on group information, was buzzing.
The identify comes from a shortened model of the Ukrainian phrase for sugar. “The town was as soon as a major producer of sugar,” mentioned Dmytro Tyshchenko, the outlet’s editor. “That was a very long time in the past, however we just like the identify.”
Dmytro Tyshchenko, co-founder and CEO of CUKR, a web-based journal specializing in group information in Sumy, at his workplace earlier this yr. “We’re right here to problem Russian propaganda and the fixed depressive scenario of conflict,” he mentioned. CUKR misplaced greater than half of its funding after the Trump administration shut down USAID.
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Anton Shtuka for NPR
Cukr tries to deal with upbeat information, Tyshchenko mentioned, including that “we wish to encourage folks to take delight in our metropolis.” The frequent Russian assaults, nevertheless, are sometimes on the entrance web page. When NPR visited the newsroom earlier this yr, the assault was the primary information on Cukr’s homepage, together with a trending profile a couple of girl who makes socks for Ukraine’s army.
“We’re right here to problem Russian propaganda and the fixed depressive scenario of conflict,” Tyshchenko mentioned, as we walked into the newsroom. “We reside on this metropolis and we would like folks to understand it, and to know one another.”
Inside, communications supervisor Anna Olshanska was pacing. The strike hit the neighborhood the place she grew up.
“My mother and father reside there, they usually’re OK, thank God,” she mentioned. “It was a really disturbing morning.”
The morning was additionally disturbing for an additional purpose: The Trump administration had frozen U.S. Company for Worldwide Improvement funds, together with cash that helped help Ukraine’s impartial media. Till then, Cukr acquired 60% of its cash from USAID, in accordance with Tyshchenko.
“It is hitting small media like us the worst,” he mentioned. “We do not have time to fret about it. We are attempting to be optimistic about surviving with out this assist.”
A CUKR editor adjusts pictures on the web journal’s web site earlier this yr.
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Russian assaults in Sumy continued as Ukraine immediately confronted an unreliable relationship with the U.S., as soon as its strongest particular person ally.
The Trump administration started dismantling USAID, an enormous blow to Ukraine, the company’s prime recipient as of 2023, the final yr through which information is obtainable. Company funds did way more than subsidize impartial media. The cash supported Ukraine’s farmers, veterans and tech staff, and in addition helped the nation restore its vitality grid, badly broken by Russian assaults.
Trump and his prime aides additionally berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy when he visited the Oval Workplace on Feb. 28 and repeated Russian speaking factors. After that, the White Home abruptly lower off army support to Ukraine, in addition to intelligence sharing. The help cut-off lasted a couple of week, till talks between Ukraine and the U.S. in Saudi Arabia on March 11, when Ukraine agreed unconditionally to a U.S.-brokered ceasefire to final 30 days.
Russia didn’t signal on, nevertheless, and after that started escalating assaults on Ukrainian cities.
A bloody Sunday
On April 13, Palm Sunday, 13-year-old Kyrylo Illiashenko was on a bus in downtown Sumy together with his mother, Maryna. They have been headed to his grandmother’s home and after that he had wrestling apply.
He held his health club bag on his lap as his mother talked on the telephone to his grandmother about Sunday lunch. Then the boy heard a wierd whistling sound.
“After which an explosion,” he mentioned. “I used to be knocked down and felt damaged glass slicing me.” The glass shards additionally sliced his mom’s face. The bus crammed with black smoke.
A Russian ballistic missile had hit close by. Folks on the bus shouted for the motive force to open the door.
“However the driver was lifeless,” Kyrylo mentioned.
Kyrylo Illiashenko, 13, was injured after a Russian missile struck the middle of Sumy, close to the bus he and his mom have been driving in April. He managed to rescue his mother and the opposite passengers.
Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
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Evgeniy Maloletka/AP
He could not discover his mother and nervous the bus would explode. A damaged window was the one exit. He hurled his health club bag via the window, then jumped via himself.
Exterior, he noticed our bodies on the road. He rushed again to the bus and compelled the door open. He pulled out the gasping passengers, together with his mother. Later, his eighth-grade classmates thanked him for saving their family on that bus.
“You are a hero,” they texted him.
Nadia Hryn, who runs Sumy’s music conservatory, heard the city’s philharmonic constructing had additionally been hit. She knew her buddy Olena Kohut, the philharmonic’s organ soloist, was on her solution to rehearsal there. Kohut additionally taught piano on the conservatory.
“I heard the primary explosion and referred to as Olena instantly,” Hryn mentioned. “She did not reply.”
Kohut’s finest buddy, Ella Mykhaylova, a violinist, referred to as her too, a number of instances, however could not get via. Then she acquired a name from the philharmonic’s percussionist.
“He informed me she had referred to as him after the primary explosion and mentioned there have been many individuals mendacity on the road,” Mykhaylova mentioned. “She needed to assist them. Then there was a second explosion, so he ran to seek out her.”
A second ballistic missile had hit, just some minutes after the primary. He discovered her on the bottom, not transferring. Emergency staff tried to resuscitate her for an hour earlier than giving up.
Emergency crews work on the web site of a Russian missile assault within the middle of Sumy this April.
Eugene Abrasimov/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/International Pictures Ukraine through Getty Pictures
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Eugene Abrasimov/Suspilne Ukraine/JSC “UA:PBC”/International Pictures Ukraine through Getty Pictures
She was amongst 35 folks killed that day. Greater than 100 have been injured.
Kohut’s college students left bouquets wrapped in sheet music on the web site of the assaults.
The grieving mom
Kohut’s mom, Natalia Tsybulko, is a classically skilled singer who additionally teaches on the conservatory. She has returned to the classroom alone. Her daughter’s absence haunts her.
“When she was a child, I took her to all my live shows,” Tsybulko mentioned. “When she grew up and fell in love with the piano, she accompanied me after I sang.”
As she listened to a pupil sing Italian arias – her daughter’s favourite – she struggled to compose herself. After class, Tsybulko sat within the again, scrolling via her telephone to seek out movies of her daughter’s organ performances.
“When she sat right down to play that organ, she made it sing like a voice,” Tsybulko mentioned, her voice hoarse.
Classical voice trainer Natalia Tsylbulko embraces Nadia Hryn, who runs Sumy’s music conservatory. Tsybulko’s daughter Olena Kohut, killed in a Russian missile assault in April, used to show on the college alongside together with her mom. “The horror and cruelty, we really feel it day by day,” Hryn mentioned.
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She wiped away tears and walked upstairs to fulfill Hryn, the conservatory director. In her workplace, Hryn set out cups of espresso spiced with pepper, cardamom and some drops of robust Slovak liquor. She sat subsequent to the grieving mom and stroked her hand.
“The horror and cruelty, we really feel it day by day,” Hryn mentioned. “We inform one another, ‘have a protected day, a protected night time, a quiet night time’. After which we go to funerals. Every little thing is fragile.”
Kohut’s household and buddies held a memorial live performance for her on Could 21 in a candlelit corridor. The live performance opened with a billboard-size display screen displaying a video of Kohut in a black, glittery full-length robe, taking part in “Chariots of Hearth” by Vangelis. A efficiency by Kohut’s college students and the philharmonic orchestra adopted.
“She flew her quick life,” mentioned Hryn, “on the wings of music.”
