- Title: PERSONAL: Russian drones damage World War Two survivor's flat in Kharkiv
- Date: 31st January 2024
- Summary: KHARKIV, UKRAINE (JANUARY 31, 2024) (REUTERS) (NIGHT SHOTS) DAMAGED APARTMENT BLOCK WHERE 89-YEAR-OLD MARHARYTA MOROZA, WORLD WAR TWO SURVIVOR, LIVES BLOWN OUT WINDOW FRAMES LOCAL RESIDENTS ON STEET, AMBULANCE LOCAL RESIDENTS, POLICE OFFICER CURTAINS COVERED IN GLASS SPLINTERS / DESTROYED BALCONY (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) 89-YEAR-OLD MARHARYTA MOROZA, WORLD WAR TWO SURVIVOR, S
- Embargoed: 14th February 2024 13:28
- Keywords: Kharkiv Leningrad blockade Russia Ukraine drone attack war in Ukraine
- Location: KHARKIV, UKRAINE
- City: KHARKIV, UKRAINE
- Country: Ukraine
- Topics: Conflicts/War/Peace,Europe,Military Conflicts
- Reuters ID: LVA001667931012024RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: More than half a century ago and 1,400 km away, Margarita Morozova lived through the World War Two siege of Leningrad.
Now the 87-year-old Ukrainian finds herself once more under attack.
A Russian kamikaze drone exploded in front of her Kharkiv apartment block on early Wednesday (January 31).
Kharkiv, a Ukrainian city of 1.5 million people that lies 25 km from the Russian border, has suffered from constant Russian air strikes since the start of the full-scale war in February 2022.
Morozova was just seven years old in 1941 when German forces began the siege of the Soviet city of Leningrad in Russia, now known as St. Petersburg, where around 1.5 million died during two years of blockade.
"My daughter died not so long ago. It's grief after grief for us. And it's all because of this war, she was very worried about it... She had a stroke. We buried her in October (2023). That's why I said grief after grief," Morozova said through tears. "If we didn't have war, she would probably still be alive."
Caught up in a conflict between the land of her birth and the land where she lives now, Morozova believes that some Russians still feel for Ukraine, like her son who lives in Russia and called her this morning to check on his mother.
"The question is why? Because we don't want to follow (Russian president Vladimir) Putin's politics, together with him? Why would we need him? Nobody needs him anywhere," she said.
"Those were strangers, the Nazis. They also took things away, bombed and destroyed. And now it turns out the same is happening here. They destroy everything and kill people, young and old, all the time... of any ethnicity."
(Production: Vitalii Hnidyi, Felix Hoske) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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