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On February 19th, in the Churchill Room of the British Parliament, as part of the event "Echoes of Tragedy: Testimonies on Russia's War in Ukraine," Oleg Afanasyev, the protagonist of the film “Distant Barking of Dogs”, spoke. She shared with members of parliament, government officials, diplomats, and human rights activists of Great Britain about the horrors of life under Russian occupation. We present his speech below.
Hello everyone! My name is Oleh and I am 17 years old. I have a big family – two brothers, a grandmother, an aunt and a father.
I used to live in the small village of Hnutove near Mariupol. In 2014, when Russia started a war against Ukraine, we constantly heard loud explosions.At that time I was seven years old. Since then we have lived near the front.
On February 24 last year, at 2:18 a.m., I woke up to explosions. The first shells from “Hrads” were flying towards our village. This is how Russia’s full-scale war against Ukrainians began.
In the morning, friends from Mariupol came to pick us up. They offered to take us to the city. It seemed like a good idea at the time. And we went to Mariupol.
Later we found ourselves under occupation.
I, my brothers, aunt and grandmother lived in the basement for two months.
We had almost no food and water, and I’m not talking about bread at all. They were shooting around the clock – day and night.
Somehow we realized that there were only three days of food left. My aunt and I decided to go for food to my grandfather in another district of Mariupol.
The whole city was in smoke, but there was no choice. I was very worried. And as if I felt that something bad was going to happen.
Before we had time to leave our basement, two shells fell next to me, about 10 meters away. I was very scared and asked my aunt to come back. But she said that without food we will die. My aunt reassured me, and we continued moving through the bombed-out city.
I can tell you a lot about those terrible two months in Mariupol. About the dead bodies on the ground, about the Chechens who took our bicycle, about the water that we drained from the heating system and boiled. About how I woke up in the middle of the night from hunger. But no story can convey all the horror of life in the occupation.
We miraculously managed to escape. We miraculously passed the filtration camps of the Russians. They threatened to kill me for texting me with the flag of Ukraine. Now we are in a safe place, in the free part of Ukraine.
We worked with psychologists, but I am still afraid to remember those events. And my younger brother Gleb, who is eight years old, is still afraid to be left alone.
I don’t want to be afraid anymore. And I don’t want other children to be afraid. After all, thousands of children are still under fire and hiding in basements.
It is very important to help them too.
From February 19th to 21st, delegations from the "Voices of Children " Charitable Foundation, Civil Network OPORA, and ICUV - International Centre for Ukrainian Victory, with the support of the Embassy of Ukraine to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, are conducting a series of events in the Parliament of the United Kingdom to commemorate the second anniversary of russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The main purpose of these events, collectively called "Echoes of Tragedy: Testimonies on Russia's War in Ukraine," is to highlight the devastating impact of the war, focusing on the experiences of civilians and the genocidal nature of the war.
As part of the events, there will be a screening of the short documentary film "What Have We Lost," produced by teenagers from the "Voices of Children" Foundation as part of an art therapy course, as well as a panel discussion. Ukrainian experts and witnesses of war crimes will discuss the experiences of children, the suppression of Ukrainian culture and identity by russia in the occupied territories of Ukraine, and what can be done to hold russia accountable for these crimes.
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