WASHINGTON — 600 white and brown teddy bears — many holding small blue-and-yellow flags — sat in symmetrical rows close to the Washington Monument, the 555-foot obelisk that honors America’s first president.
Below a grey Friday afternoon sky, seven Ukrainian girls braved chilly, gusty winds as they took turns studying the names and ages of kids killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started 34 months in the past.
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Artem, Yehor and Kyrylo — ages 15, 10 and 5 — had been in all probability brothers. Nikol died at 13 months. Rodyna, listed as “unborn,” seemingly perished together with his mom. The plaintive ringing of a small bell, mounted on a small, picket platform surrounded by Ukrainian flags, adopted every identify.
In all, the seven girls learn 356 names. They may have learn many extra — if solely the names had been recognized. Not less than 600 youngsters have died because the begin of the battle on Feb. 24, 2022.
The somber litany shaped the emotional centerpiece of “Keep in mind the Youngsters of Ukraine,” a day-after-Thanksgiving observance to honor the kids “killed, wounded, displaced, or orphaned” because the 2022 begin of the Russian invasion, in response to Rescue Ukraine, the nonprofit that organized the occasion.
Olga Tkachenko works with different Ukrainian and American Christians to position 600 bears in rows close to the Washington Monument.
Jeff Abrams directs the Alabama-based ministry that has labored in Ukraine for 30 years. Previously minister for the Tuscumbia Church of Christ, Abrams not too long ago stepped down from the pulpit to work full time with Rescue Ukraine.
Abrams and a gaggle of greater than 40 folks traveled 15 hours by bus from Tuscumbia to succeed in the nation’s capital. Most had been Ukrainian Christians displaced by the battle. Others had been U.S. church members captivated with Ukraine. Further demonstrators got here from locations together with Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, Tennessee and Washington state.
‘It’s virtually like a message from God’
The bears caught some eyes.
Media retailers arrived and mounted cameras on tripods. Passers-by stopped and requested in regards to the show. Some posed for photographs with the bears. A number of even helped stuff the bears in black plastic luggage after the ceremony for eventual cargo to Ukraine.
Abrams has traveled to Ukraine numerous occasions because the Nineteen Nineties. In September, as he helped Ukrainian Christians relocate from the entrance traces, he noticed many stuffed animals commemorating the lack of youngsters. In Kharkiv, a metropolis just some miles from the Russian border, a teddy bear honored the reminiscence of a lady named Sophia who died in a missile strike as she sat on a park bench.
In one other war-torn metropolis, Dnipro, “I noticed this massive mound of teddy bears,” Abrams stated. “It’s virtually like a message from God. That is … the image that you should use to speak.”
“I noticed this massive mound of teddy bears. It’s virtually like a message from God. That is … the image that you should use to speak.”
With the bears and the Washington Monument as backdrop, audio system portrayed the brutality of the Russian invasion, singers carried out the Ukrainian songs, and two younger violinists carried out a beloved Ukrainian composition.
Behind the teddy bears, some 15 group members braved the chilly to carry a protracted banner studying “Keep in mind the kids of Ukraine killed by Russia.”
Seven Ukrainian girls take turns studying the names and ages of kids killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine started 34 months in the past.
Following a saxophone rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” and an a cappella efficiency of the state anthem of Ukraine, the Ukrainian ambassador to the U.S., Oksana Markarova, powerfully denounced the struggling of Ukrainian youngsters.
Since 2014, when Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula and pro-Russian separatists seized energy in Ukraine’s japanese Donbas area, “there may be not a struggle crime that Russia didn’t commit in Ukraine,” Markarova stated. “However what they do to Ukrainian youngsters might be probably the most despicable of the crimes.”
“There’s not a struggle crime that Russia didn’t commit in Ukraine. However what they do to Ukrainian youngsters might be probably the most despicable of the crimes.”
In addition to the 600 youngsters who’ve died since February 2022, greater than 1,420 have suffered accidents, in response to the United Nations Human Rights Workplace. Almost 1 / 4 of school-age youngsters are unable to attend courses in particular person.
Markarova additionally decried the compelled deportation of Ukrainian youngsters, echoing different officers who keep that Russia has forcibly transferred hundreds of youths to its territory, in response to the U.N.
Bears positioned close to the Washington Monument characterize greater than 600 Ukrainian youngsters killed in Russia’s invasion.
The ambassador thanked Abrams and the occasion organizers for giving voice to the kids perpetually silenced. “I do know that God will hear all of our prayers,” she stated. The day “will come once we shall be standing right here … saying ‘thanks’ and praising the peace that got here.”
Christmas is the vacation of hope, Markarova stated. “It’s the vacation that tells us that gentle at all times wins.”
Devastated, suffocated and offended
Tuscumbia church member Viktor Semikoz led the Ukrainian anthem and a track known as “Prayer for Ukraine,” which he described as a petition for God’s assist — and a car of hope.
“Once I was singing, I felt a deep sense of accountability,” stated Semikoz, who studied accordion throughout his school years in Bakhmut, a metropolis in japanese Ukraine the place a number of the bloodiest infantry preventing since World Warfare II occurred earlier than it fell to the Russians in Could 2023.
“I additionally thought in regards to the future when there shall be no earth as we all know it, and we shall be with God, and there shall be no extra wars or struggling.”
“I thought of each phrase I sang,” stated Semikoz, a church track chief for practically 25 years, with assist from interpreter Kate Hladkykh. “I additionally thought in regards to the future when there shall be no earth as we all know it, and we shall be with God, and there shall be no extra wars or struggling.”
For Hladkykh, one in every of 5 Tuscumbia church members who learn the names of kids through the ceremony, the expertise was overwhelming.
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“On the identical time I really feel … simply devastated and likewise really feel offended,” she stated. Every identify represents “a life stuffed with potential, simply reduce quick by this horrible violence.”
One other reader, Julia Kachuk, fled the preventing along with her daughter and now worships with the Tuscumbia church.
Hanna Michshenko wears a coronary heart within the colours of the Ukrainian flag.
“Probably the most painful factor (was) to voice the names of unborn youngsters,” Kachuk stated. “It suffocates a lot that there’s nothing to breathe, and there’s no power to maneuver on.”
Discovering the names of the kids required detective work. Church member Hanna Michshenko combed information companies and social media for months for references to the deaths containing concrete data similar to identify, age and place of loss of life. Michshenko, 19, cried repeatedly as she compiled the checklist — particularly when she got here throughout a 14-year-old lady additionally named Hanna Michshenko and when she discovered youngsters who died on her birthday or her mother’s.
Bears for Russians
After the ceremony, Abrams and about 20 others boarded a bus and rode to the Russian embassy. Utilizing blue-and-yellow ribbons, the group tied a banner declaring “Russia murders youngsters” to the embassy gate above 5 of the ceremony’s white bears sprinkled with a purple dye, symbolizing blood.
“Can I provide you with one in every of these bears?” Abrams requested Russian officers by way of a talkbox on the gate, as members of the group translated his request into Russian. “We’re Christians; we wish to give these bears to Russia.”
Jeff Abrams and fellow Christians maintain a banner and bears stained with purple paint symbolizing blood exterior the Russian embassy.
Quickly, an officer carrying a U.S. Secret Service emblem approached the group and requested them to take away the banner and the bears.
The group accomplished the day’s commemoration on the Embassy of Ukraine, the place it held a banner studying “Keep in mind the kids of Ukraine” whereas posing for a photograph on the entrance steps.
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For Hladkykh, the occasions in Washington served as a proclamation.
In a world rising numb to struggle, she stated, “I feel we’re preaching a really highly effective message.”
Earlier within the day, with Ukrainian youngsters’s names nonetheless ringing within the viewers’s ears, Abrams requested for God’s intervention to finish the bloody battle in Ukraine.
Christians maintain teddy bears, some with names, representing killed Ukrainian youngsters exterior the Russian embassy in Washington.
“Contact the hearts of these that may cease this struggle,” he prayed. “There’ve been too many tears, too many who have died.
“And we beg you, God, cease this struggle. Convey peace to Ukraine.”
TED PARKS is a Nashville-based correspondent for The Christian Chronicle. A contributor to the Chronicle because the Nineteen Nineties, he teaches Spanish at Lipscomb College. To supply suggestions on this story, contact [email protected].
