australia from los angeles khrystyna shevchenko bohdan shevchenko for voice of america. anastasia yarova from khmelnytskyi lost her husband when she was only 27. vitaly polishchuk joined the ranks of the khmelnytsky teroborona from the first days of the full-scale invasion of russia. he had no military experience, worked in the field of information technologies and was an adviser to the mayor on bicycle infrastructure. vitaly polishchuk died on may 9, 2022, when the brigade was defending near the izyum slovyansk highway. the story of a wife who, after the death of her husband , continues his business in the material of tetyana kukurika and serhiy rybchinsky. i have a girlfriend who also became a housewife at 27. i mean, ivanka, you and i are so happy at 27. anastasia yarova met her future husband vitaly polishchuk in the spring of 2017. my youth disappeared on the war revolution of dignity and war. i somehow internally did not want to have a military man. i was, you know, scared that it was a war, that he might die in the war. and i somehow avoided the military guys, wel

it took nine months to bring the american's body home, says khrystyna shevchenko.cortege with the body of a former us military police officer leaves from the airport in los angeles to ohio. jericho sky magalonov. the coffin is accompanied by veterans of the american army on motorcycles. representatives of the ukrainian community stand along the road. they came to pay their last respects to the american volunteer. who died near bakhmut in donetsk region. it must have been the hardest day since we found out jerry's death. died, we were touched, we had no idea that the community would respond in such a way. the next day, jericho is said goodbye to his family and friends in his hometown of ohio, near los angeles. near the house covered with ukrainian and jericho's mother, sister, brother, girlfriend and sons with american flags. he never got to see the younger one. he felt. that has to go there, have you tried turning it down? yes, i was pregnant. for the first time, the californian went to ukraine as a volunteer, after the full-scale invasion of russia in march 2022.

khrystyna shevchenko talked to him about why exactly donbas became a region where the russians managedpread separatism. in your opinion, why was there an opportunity for russian peace in donbas? i think russia's main goals in 2014 were to capture dnipro, odesa and kharkiv, if they captured these three cities, then the rest of what putin called novorossia would fall into russian hands. as far as i can tell, russia had no particular interest in donbass. for them, donbass is, so to speak, an industrial wasteland. this region. difficult to understand and manage. donbas has always been a problem child for politicians. yes, donbas fell into russian hands, but i don't think it was predetermined. i do not believe that russia really, really wanted donbas. russia wanted much more. of course, kharkiv or dnipro are much more attractive places. but still, why was it possible to capture donbas, and not such cities as? kharkiv or odesa. the penetration of russian agents into donbas was deeper than in kharkiv or odesa, due to the fact that it is closer to the border. but at the same time, donbav was a