January 1, 2024 at 3:47 p.m. EST
Medic Iryna Peshykova poses for a portrait at her base in Kharkiv, Ukraine, on Monday. (Wojciech Grzedzinski)
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KHARKIV, Ukraine — At a medic base an hour’s drive from the Russian border, Iryna Peshykova waited for the new year to arrive — and with it, more explosions, more carnage.
The ambulance out back was already running, ready to go as the clock ticked closer to midnight, bringing her country into a third year of war with no end in sight. It was New Year’s Eve and Peshykova, 40, knew that — when the shelling began again — she’d be among the first to bear witness to the fallout.
That week, she’d seen Russia bombard Ukraine — firing more than 150 missiles and drones on Friday in one of the largest attacks since invading in February 2022. At least 30 people were killed, and more than 160 were injured. Then, on Saturday, Ukraine shelled the border city of Belgorod in what Russia called a “terrorist attack.” At least 24 people were killed, said Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of the Belgorod region.
Russia retaliated by shelling Peshykova’s city of Kharkiv — home to more than 1.4 million in eastern Ukraine — injuring two dozen people and hitting apartment buildings, a hotel and a kindergarten. Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv was almost lost early in the war as Russian troops overtook nearby villages, wrapping around the city from three sides — but it had ultimately resisted defeat, though its proximity to Russia kept it in the path of danger.
The tit for tat shelling foreshadowed a long winter to come as the counteroffensive ground to a halt and soldiers dug into front lines that barely budged. Like in the trenches, morale at the medic base was low. The group was the first to confront the human damage done by missiles in Kharkiv, hoping victims would survive the race to the hospital.
“There’s no New Year’s in my soul,” said Peshykova, who has worked as a medic for 15 years. “It’s just a word.”
In the station kitchen, she and a half-dozen medics and ambulance drivers crowded around a table spread with plates of cookies and sliced oranges. They nursed mugs of black tea and instant coffee, waiting — unsure what their 12-hour shift would bring, unsure what new brutalities they would confront.
“We are hoping it will be nothing,” said medic Nataliya Mykytenko, 48, sipping her tea.
“Thoughts materialize, so we only want to think about the good,” Peshykova replied. “Hopefully we don’t have any calls.”
The radio was silent — for now.
‘When will everything be over?’
Beyond the medic base, war marked the city of Kharkiv.
At the Kharkiv Palace Hotel — one of the sites hit the day before — pale curtains fluttered out broken windows like flags. Above the hotel’s entrance, twinkle lights drooped. The siding was stripped to the cinder block; a floor lamp silhouetted one empty room.
Mykola Yurechko, 54, stood out front and looked up at the hotel, once popular with journalists and volunteers for nongovernmental organizations.
“It’s horrible,” he said. “It’s horrible.”
Yurechko, who has lived in Milan for 14 years, was in his home country for the holidays visiting friends. He knew Italians who didn’t believe that the war in Ukraine was still going. One friend — married to a woman from Moscow — asked him for proof.
“I said, ‘Would you agree to give your kids to go on a tour here if there was no war?’” he said. “The only thing is — when will everything be over?”
In the distance, air raid sirens wailed.
Underground, in the nearest subway station, the alarm faded. Trains slid by on the tracks, and an attendant droned on an overhead speaker. Families posed in front of a tall Christmas tree. Once, it had stood proudly in Kharkiv’s Freedom Square — but with the arrival of war, it had been tucked deep in the station’s belly, where it was protected.
Beside the tree, a clock was topped with a Santa hat — its hands never moving forward, frozen in time.
Up the subway’s escalators and across the street, in a small shop selling Ukraine’s popular “drunken cherry” — a sweet liqueur known as pyana vyshnia — a sticker of Putin was affixed to the wall near the cash register, a bullet hole between his eyes.
It was 11 p.m. — the start of the nightly citywide curfew.
At the table, Peshykova spoke of the calls coming in lately — so many elderly people needing help. Their children had fled and were living in countries across Europe. There was no one to look after them. One call brought her to a man, paralyzed and emaciated, who couldn’t feed himself. Another call led to a couple reliant on social services, their soiled underclothes changed only once a day.
The medics’ jobs were changed by the war. During the counteroffensive, they’d followed the front lines, carting wounded soldiers to nearby hospitals, some with missing limbs. With increased shelling, patients became harder to stabilize, their bodies punctured in multiple places by shrapnel.
Once, at another medic base, Peshykova had been 300 yards away when a massive aerial bomb exploded, blasting the building’s windows and shaking her to her bones.
“In the beginning, we used to go to shellings every day,” she said. “Everybody wants all this to be over.”
A stethoscope draped around her neck, Peshykova had sparkly nails and fluffy bangs. She showed photos of her 12-year-old son — she was raising him alone after divorcing the boy’s father, who was currently serving in the army — to her colleagues. She was handling a lot. But she would not give up.
Dressed in their red uniforms — striped with reflective tape — they waited.
When a call comes in, the crew has two minutes to get out the door, another 10 minutes to arrive at the victim’s location. Timing often depends on the roads — in bad shape because of the repeated shelling. They always have to be ready.
“You cannot predict what the enemy would do,” Peshykova said. Russia was “trying to destroy everything.”
Out back, 10 ambulances lined the parking lot. The ambulance left running was new — a donation from Poland. Flak jackets were tucked in the front, near the driver’s seat. A helmet was strapped to the back door. Their boss reminded them often that their safety was the most important thing. They weren’t on the front lines, but they were still operating in a war zone.
Nearby was the husk of another ambulance, destroyed in a bombing, its frame blackened. They had towed it back to the station to remember.
Another 10 minutes. They talked. They waited.
The station dog — abandoned at a bus stop, now recovering from cancer — curled like a roll on the couch, where the medics sometimes slept or watched movies. Their Christmas tree was dark, ringed by empty packages, wrapped in pretty paper. They were trying to save electricity.
It was now five minutes to midnight.
In the station kitchen, they sliced more oranges. They longed to be sipping champagne with their families. Instead, they shared olives, sliced bread, wedges of cheese and jam-filled cookies.
Their breath, collectively held. Peshykova hoped that everything would be better next year. She dreamed the conflict would end.
The clocked turned. No noise, only quiet.
The new year was here, and the war continued. But for one night, they were spared.