“SOMEONE WHO GIVES ORDERS TO KILL, CANNOT BE *ASKED* TO STOP DOING IT” — Faina Savenkova, 14, Donbass
This is my English translation of the article by Faina Savenkova, child author, playwright and peace activist from Luhansk, Donbass.
The original in Russian can be read here.
“A year ago, the website “Mirotvorets”
(Ukrainian online kill list and database of targets, includes hundreds of children) put my contact data for free public access. I wrote many letters to world leaders and creative people from Western countries. I had only two requests: to remove the data of all children from Mirotvorets and to help the children of Donbas to find a peaceful life, so that we wouldn’t be killed. When the confrontation with Mirotvorets began, my Ukrainian journalist friends asked me why I didn’t write a letter to Zelensky, but only mentioned him in my interview.
At that time it was hard for me to answer, I still naively believed that there could be peace between Ukraine and Donbass, and that UN Secretary General Guterres and UNICEF, as internationally known organizations, would help me. But, unfortunately, I was wrong. Everything I asked for was ignored by these organizations, and Ukraine decided that we can be subjugated by force.
My efforts and dreams remained dreams. The only thing I’m glad for is that I didn’t write to Zelensky back then. And now I understand why: you can’t write and ask not to kill children to the one who gives the orders to shell Donetsk, Gorlovka, Alchevsk, and other cities. One cannot write to the president who sends thousands of his soldiers to their deaths without sparing them, gives orders for terrorist acts and murders of children. One cannot write to the president who started this massacre and lost half of his country. You can’t write to a loser. Every day children are dying in Donbass. And it’s all his fault. A president who will lose everything…
Well, what about UNICEF, the UN, Amnesty International? Have they said anything about the children killed by the Ukrainian army? No, of course not. Just like in the Mirotvorets story. They know. But they remain silent or express concern. They are silent always and everywhere. Silent when the children of Yugoslavia, Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were and are being killed. And if such respected organizations turn a blind eye to the brutal killing of children, do they have anything to say about the Mirotvorets story? I guess not. After all, we are the wrong children, born and living in the wrong place, according to UNICEF and Amnesty International. One of my essays says that war children are quiet because adults can’t hear them. They are. Unfortunately, we — the children — are not interested in them. We are not like them. They seem to think it’s okay to kill us, just to do it quietly, so as not to disturb others with our cries for help. I’m sorry that this is happening. I’m sorry that the country I was born in, is shelling and trying to destroy everything I care about and love, under the approving smile of those who can but won’t stop this war. Unfortunately, all those who help Ukraine do not realize that THE WAR IS COMING TO THEM.
Ordinary people in the U.S. and Europe are mostly unaware of the atrocities of the Ukrainian army, the brutal shelling and killing of civilians. People are told that we are shelling ourselves or that the Russian army has been shooting at us for eight years. Apparently, that’s why we’ve been waiting for Russia to come in 2022, yep. Alternative reality.”
Faina Savenkova, Lugansk
