‘Bang, bang': Children live and play near Ukraine front line

KRAMATORSK, Ukraine — The children flicker like ghosts on the empty playgrounds in weedy courtyards deep in a city whose residents have been told to get out now. Chatting to herself while settling in with a lavish box of colored markers, Tania added, “Bang, bang!” It’s not unusual for older residents of eastern Ukraine to refuse to heed calls to evacuate to safer places elsewhere in the country. Tania’s parents spoke on the day a Russian missile struck Vinnytsia, far from the front in central Ukraine, killing 23 people including three children — a 4-year-old girl named Liza Dmytrieva and two boys aged 7 and 8. “I’d rather stay because I have friends here,” he said, but if he had small children, he would take them out. “They’re kids,” he said, with the same gruffness he uses to call the entire war “nonsense.” Dr. Vitalii Malanchuk said a “quite high” number of children are patients at the hospital.