Nick Schifrin:
The message is two words: weapons and resilience.
Ukraine needs more weapons in order to launch a counteroffensive in the coming weeks and months. And that’s not only the armored vehicles that the U.S. is sending to try and launch that counteroffensive. It’s also basic ammunition. I visited multiple units on the front, Geoff, that have said that they are short on ammunition.
And also resilience. You hear that from Zelenskyy, to the soldier on the front, to the man who has just lost his home in Eastern Ukraine to a Russian rocket. They are resilient in spite of, but because of all of the horrors, all of the crimes, what the U.S. calls crimes against humanity that I have been reporting on committed by Russian forces who are waging total war.
The person who pushed the button that launched the missile that struck 13 Marat Street, Kramatorsk, almost certainly did not know of the apartments that once stood here, the people and families who once lived here, and the lives that were stolen here.
But 60-year-old Valentina knows. She might have lived on the fourth floor, but all that she owns fell here in the lobby. She salvages what she can from the Russian strike on February 1 that Ukraine and the U.S. called indiscriminate. She walked up to her apartment, despite the frequent air raid siren. She has lived here longer than Ukraine has been independent.
She was in her apartment when the missile struck. She is lucky to be alive. Today, she uses it for storage. This is what remains of her possessions. The wall that used to have a window into the bathroom is now a window onto the ground below. That’s her bathtub, and the aqua tiles installed by her and her son.
Valentina, Resident of Kramatorsk, Ukraine (through translator): I was asleep. And I was lucky that I was on the other side of the apartment. Had I been sleeping on the side, you see for yourself.