It’s ironic that this post comes with a warning about graphic content in a video about women and children in Ukraine. Having traveled in Ukraine, I know it’s their reality in resistance.
Katharine Lake Berz is a freelance journalist who writes about the impac
t of national and international issues on people’s lives. Her work has appeared in the Toronto Star, The Globe and Mail, Toronto Life, CBC, Broadview, National Post, The Canadian Press, TVO, News Decoder, The Walrus and others.
Katherine wrote a beautiful series on Ukrainian women and children who survived Russian war crimes. I wrote to her to thank her and she was kind enough to write back and encourage me in my writing.
She produced the documentary, “Unbroken: The Story of Resistance.” It’s 20 minutes
long and worth the time to be informed about the assault on the mental health of Ukrainians.
The documentary contains scenes and footage some viewers may find upsetting. If you like, watch the first 4 minutes and then go to 18:00 and see the end.
Oleksandra and Nadiia
Civilian victims of Russia’s terror, Oleksandra Ikonnikova and her 6-year-old daughter Nadiia, spend three weeks at a Ukrainian field hospital for the wounded of heart. Oleksandra, who struggled to keep Nadiia alive, is suffering acute post-traumatic stress. Nadiia stopped eating.
Psychologists helped them recover and build resilience for the pain still to come. The survivors learn to become warriors, not victims. Their determination to thrive is their way to fight back against Russian aggression. Oleksandra and Nadiia grew stronger in the supportive community but left with no home to return to as the war rages on.
Assault on Heat and Light
Have you kept track of Russia’s merciless assault on Ukraine’s power supply this winter? Over 800,000 residents of Kyiv, a major European city, were forced to flee in January when Russian bombardment shut down heat, light, and electricity to millions of residents in the capital and across the country.
Seniors were living in apartments with the temperature at 10C. Many pictures we received lately from Ukraine were of a single candle lighting a living room.
In fact there is a new term for it: Kholodomor (Death by Freezing/Cold). This term is a direct play on “Holodomor” (the man-made famine/genocide of 1932–1933, meaning “death by hunger”) The new term is used to describe Russia’s deliberate campaign to destroy Ukraine’s heating, water, and electricity infrastructure during winter to force capitulation.
There was been a marked increase in Russia’s bombardment in 2025. Ever since the US spoke of peace, Russia increased its onslaught.
And yet Ukrainians remain unbroken. Russia wants their land and natural resources and more dangerously, to erase the existence of Ukraine. However, Ukrainians would rather fight than surrender their country to oppression.
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