Am 1453. Tag der groß angelegten Invasion ist die Sonne über Kiew untergegangen. Yuliia und ihr Sohn verstecken sich während der nächtlichen Bombardierungen im Treppenhaus. Sie strickt Spielzeug, um den Lärm von Explosionen zu unterdrücken.

At night, Yuliia Yatlova runs down the stairs from her ninth-floor apartment, carrying her 3-year-old son, knitting needles, yarn and a small stool. While shelling pounds Kharkiv, she knits toys, focusing on each stitch to block out the sound of explosions and to bring small moments of joy to her children. 

***

The shelter in her building is not suitable for staying in, not even for adults, let alone children, Yuliia says. She raises concerns about sanitation: it is cold and damp, with a heavy, lingering smell. There is another shelter nearby, but running to it during shelling feels too dangerous. The route passes playgrounds that have already been hit twice during the war by missiles and drones. Instead, Yuliia Yatlova relies on the load-bearing walls in her stairwell. She hopes they will shield her and her son from shrapnel if a strike or blast wave damages the building.

>“We live on the ninth floor, that’s the top floor. When shelling starts, it’s so frightening,” says Yuliia Yatlova. “The reinforced interior walls run perpendicular to the windows, so they won’t protect us from anything. And the exterior walls of the building are so thin you could cut them with a knife. So any sense of safety is an illusion. For my own peace of mind, I’ve put blast-resistant film on the window in one of the rooms, and now my son and I sleep there.”

As she waits out the shelling, her young son sleeps in her arms. When he wakes and the air raid alert is still in effect, Yuliia turns to knitting. She makes yarn balls that her children later play with, tossing them around the apartment like snowballs on days when they do not want to go outside

See more photos and full story here: .[https://frontliner.ua/en/motherhood-under-shelling-raising-two-sons-alone-in-kharkiv/](https://frontliner.ua/en/motherhood-under-shelling-raising-two-sons-alone-in-kharkiv/) 

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