Tough Choices for New Parents in Ukraine's Beleaguered East
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You're listening to State of the World from NPR, the day's most vital international stories, up close where they are happening. It's Friday, May 16th. I'm Christine Arismith. It's been over three long years since Russia invaded Ukraine. And in that time, Ukraine's managed to keep control of just a third of the eastern province of Donetsk. We're going there today to the holdout town of Slovyansk,

which has actually been under pressure and assault from Kremlin-backed forces since 2014. Slovyansk is tattered and tired, but many residents are determined to continue on with their lives, including starting families. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley visited a maternity clinic there.

Sounds of new life resound through the hallways of Slovyansk City Hospital, which has the last working maternity ward in Ukrainian-held Donbass. Hello. How are you?

We meet pediatrician and hospital director Volodymyr Ivonenko. A large map of Ukraine hangs on the wall over his desk. He says when Russia invaded in 2022, many staff members fled, but almost everyone's returned, working through missile strikes and electricity and water cuts. We are a Ukrainian health institution and must provide care until the last moment.

Whether it's dangerous or not is another issue. It's a job, just like sitting in a trench. You have to work for something.

In room number nine, new mother Anastasia holds her one-day-old daughter Vasilisa. It's a private moment she's happy to share briefly, but doesn't want to give their family name. She also has a one-and-a-half-year-old. She wants to stay in this town where she grew up and her whole family still lives. It's always better to be at home than somewhere else.

For now, she doesn't have to explain the daily sirens to her children or why some buildings in town lie in rubble. I asked the young mother if she'd prefer Slovyansk be under Russian or Ukrainian control. Some Ukrainians in the east have traditionally felt closer to Russia than Kyiv, though that has changed since the war. I don't care what kind of peace we have.

I just want my children to live with nothing flying over their heads. The doctor who's been showing us around pulls me aside. Valentina Fushenko says this question of Russia or Ukraine ripped families apart in 2014 when Kremlin-backed separatists briefly took over Slovyansk. It's a specific catastrophe.

And when the 2022 invasion came, it was a total catastrophe. But to try not to hurt or offend, we don't have these conversations anymore.

Everyone just tries to live their life. Plushenko says people hold on as long as possible because going somewhere else means paying rent. Are you from Slovansk? No, from Kramatorsk. Kristina Deschenko from nearby Kramatorsk says her contractions have begun. Her husband Valentin says he's worried about the safety of their first child. Nothing good will happen to Donetsk.

We're going to have to leave. The couple wants to move to a safer place like the Kyiv suburbs. Dushchenko says before President Trump was elected, he thought Ukraine would keep part of Donetsk province in a peace settlement. But now he thinks Trump and Russia will take it away. All hope is gone, he says.

Little kids frolic in a playground next to the Slovyansk town hall, whose entrance is buttressed by sandbags. Out front are giant portraits of the town's sons who've fallen in battle. Five-year-old Artem plays cops and robbers as his father, Dmitry Kluchnikov, looks on.

Air raid sirens begin to go off. I ask if his son knows what's going on. Yes, he knows the Russians are bombing us. He hates them. They're the bad guys. So will they stay? I understand they want Donetsk. And if for any reason they get it,

We will leave. They have killed so many people, says Kluchnikov. We will never live in the country of the killers. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Slovyansk, Ukraine. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening. This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what.

To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This is American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.

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