“Dad, I don’t want to live.” At the UN Security Council, Kuleba reads an excerpt from the diary of a child who lost his father during the war

On July 18, 2023, at the Debate of the UN General Assembly, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba quoted the diary of 12-year-old Arina, whose father was shot by the Russian military when he tried to evacuate his children from the occupied Kherson region.

Arina Pervunina saw her father’s death with her very own eyes. When the full-scale war broke out, Arina and her younger brother, Matvii, were at their grandmother’s house in a village in the Kherson region. During the evacuation to Mykolaiv, a roughly 2 hour-long drive, the family’s car was shot at by Russian soldiers, resulting in her father receiving 17 bullet wounds. He died a few hours later. Arina could have also lost her brother that day, but the family’s dog that Matvii had been holding in his arms had protected him, also dying as a result of the attack.

Now Arina lives with her brother and mother in Odesa. After the tragedy, Arina wrote letters to her father in her diary, trying to express her pain, despair and her love for him. For her and her brother Matvii, he will always remain a hero who saved the family at the cost of his own life.

Stories like Arina’s have become a cruel reality for thousands of children across Ukraine. According to the National Social Service of Ukraine, more than 1,000 children have been left deprived of parental care due to their parents’ death due to Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine. The Children of Heroes Charity Fund has over 5,000 children who have lost one or both parents in the war. About 20-30 new families join the organization’s programs daily.

“We hear dozens of new tragic stories every day. These families and children need not only the humanitarian, legal, financial, educational, and psychological support our Fund provides, but they also want their stories to be heard and for their Heroes to be remembered. By telling their stories, we share the pain of these families and draw the world’s attention to the tragedy unfolding before their eyes. Therefore, every opportunity to tell their story is essential in helping the families of those killed in the war,” comments Anna Khomenko, co-founder of the Children of Heroes Charity Fund.

On August 17th, the stories of the children of the Heroes will be presented in Amsterdam as part of the exhibition “War Diaries: Unheard Voices of Ukrainian Children,” initiated by Khrystyna Khranovska and organized by the Port of Culture NGO with the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. This event will share the story of the war through the eyes of children by way of audio and video interviews. The exhibition will feature diaries and drawings by eight kids supported by the Children of Heroes Charity Fund.