In Ukraine, broken lives in a broken house, just one of many

By OLEKSANDR STASHEVSKYI and NATACHA PISARENKO
Associated Press

POTASHNYA, Ukraine (AP) — In 100 days of war in Ukraine, countless lives have been forever shattered. Nila Zelinska and her husband Eduard are one of those families. They returned for the first time since Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion to what used to be their home in a village outside Kyiv. It was in ruins, reduced to charred walls with no roof by shelling. Their black Labrador, which they’d been forced to leave behind, finally appeared, tail wagging. But nothing else was as it had been. Their broken house is now a symbol of their broken lives. The Ukrainian grandmother sobbed, saying “there is no place to live. If there was housing, we would return and plant a garden.” But there will be no garden this year.