Natalya Tyshchuk was nursing her three-month-old daughter Mia when she heard a terrifying whistle.
The 36-year-old marketing strategist and first-time mom first took cover under the windowsill in her room of the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv, clutching the prematurely born Mia to her chest. Her next move was down into the shelter under the hospital.
Natalya Tyshchuk holds her three-month-old daughter, Mia, in a hospital bomb shelter in Kyiv. Mia was born premature in December, and is not yet able to leave the hospital.Natalia Tyshchuk via Anton Skyba/The Globe and Mail
“Right now, I’m sitting on the floor. There are thick walls and no windows and we only hear the loudest explosions, so I feel safe,” Ms. Tyshchuk said in a telephone interview with The Globe from the shelter on Saturday night. “We’re more or less okay, but there are some kids under intensive care who had to be moved to the basement with their life-support care and oxygen cannisters.”
Ukrainian media reported that the Okhmadyt hospital, which specializes in treating pediatric cancer patients, was caught up in the fighting after nightfall here on Saturday as Russian troops continued their violent push into this normally graceful and vibrant city of three million people.
Natalia Tyshchuk holds Mia's hand.Natalia Tyshchuk via Anton Skyba/The Globe and Mail
Gunfire near the hospital reportedly killed a young girl, and wounded five other people, including two children. “Her name was Polina. She studied in the fourth grade at School No. 24 in Kyiv. This morning, she and her parents were shot by Russian sabotage and reconnaissance groups,” Kyiv’s Deputy Mayor Volodymyr Bondarenko wrote on his Facebook page on Saturday, adding that Polina’s sister and brother were among the wounded.
The dead and wounded were brought to Okhmadyt, leading to some early confusion about whether the hospital itself had been attacked.
Ms. Tyshchuk and three-month-old Mia, who was born three months early, were planning to spend all of Sunday in the hospital’s Soviet-era bomb shelter.
She said she was proud of Mia, who was due to be finally released on Tuesday after being born in December, three months ahead of term.
“She’s a little stressed, but she’s strong. I’m really glad that she’s very, very young and won’t remember any of this,” she said, bedding down in the shelter with what she said was about 50 other people. “She will be a very strong character in the future.”
Patients and staff of the Okhmatdyt National Child Hospital in Kyiv shelter in the basement of the hospital as fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces rages outside.Natalia Tyshchuk via Anton Skyba/The Globe and Mail
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Mark MacKinnon