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The tragedy happened on June 1. We learned about that tragedy in the morning when we got a call at 5:00 a.m. and were told that either a missile had landed,

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or debris, or some kind of explosion had occurred near the clinic, which was located right next to our sports club. We were asked to come and help remove the glass from the windows of our club,

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and then a few hours later, we were called and told that our girl had died near the clinic where that tragedy had happened. The girl who practiced in our club was Ivashko Viktoria.

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Firstly, when we were called at 5:00 a.m., I thought that we would learn some sad news, because everyone who was near that clinic,

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and the same clinic was located near our sports club. Therefore, the people who ran there for the shelter, the bomb shelter...

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I understood that it could not be that our loved ones or acquaintances of our students were not there. But we could not imagine that such a tragedy could happen,

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that Ivashko’s mother Vika and Vika died, we definitely did not expect that. That time, there was just such a situation when people ran to the bomb shelter because

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there was such a message that there was a ballistic missile. There were many parents of acquaintances and then those with whom we communicated,

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they said that there were a lot of people who knocked for a very long time and no one opened. And that missile or that fragment, I don’t know what it was called, so fast,

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people were standing there and no one got in. According to the situation with Vika and her mother, it turned out that they fled

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and simply ended up at the wrong time and in the wrong place. Because people who were closer to the premises and to that door, that knocked or were somewhere nearby,

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the consequences were not so terrible, but they turned out to be, I understood that they fled and ended up exactly in the place where it landed. Because,

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as I was told, her mother was torn to pieces so that nothing was left at all, and Vika was thrown back so that she did not survive from that blast. 

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Our administrator with the coach replacing me in my group, they were with their grandmother. Yesterday, there was a funeral, and yesterday, they went to see her. 

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She still does not fully realize that tragedy, one realizes a little later. A little time will pass, and you will realize that they are not there. She is in a very bad psychological state,

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she has no relatives, no one, that is, only a neighbor and a godfather help her grandmother now. The godfather of Vika’s mother, and she is in shock.

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That tragedy that happened, you could see it right from the window, their window overlooks this clinic directly. She told our coach and administrator that it was through this window that she saw how it happened.

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It’s so terrible. Then, later, we learned that this was one tragedy, and then we found out that my grandmother fell ill with leukemia a year ago, and only Olia, Vika’s mother,

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was involved in the treatment, and money, and she was involved in this treatment, but now there is no one. There are those people who knew this family,

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they turned to us so that we could help with fundraising, with treatment. This, of course, is a complete nightmare, one shock after another. I don’t know how grandma can survive this.

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As of today, many parents who lived there turned to us, they called and talked, in groups – in messengers, if everything was fine with all our students, if anyone needed help.

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Then parents began to give feedback that they had a very hard time that morning and that night, and many children were psychologically traumatized in terms of the fact

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that parents said that they could feel in nearby buildings that their buildings were collapsing. One mother said that she lay on her son, but understood that her 48 kilograms would not save him;

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but she said that when it happened, she thought that their building was collapsing, although it was across the street. And she said that it was so terrible...

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Children felt it, they hardly survived that night, it was very scary. Many children began to cry for a long time, to be silent, and the parents began to turn to us. We, as a children’s organization, 

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offered to provide the following assistance – to invite a psychologist, so that in the first half of the day in our hall, it would be such a comfortable environment for our students,

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so that the psychologist would work with the children and so that they could recover. Those two days I felt like I was there, in Kyiv, because that was constant communication,

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those were children, parents, older children who could call, coaches. I do not remembers those two days, what was happening, where I was, but I was there with my soul, body,

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mind, because it was impossible to overcome. Vika trained with us for about three years, she came to practice judo voluntarily, that is, when children come for trial classes, we ask them if they wanted to,

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or if they became interested, or if their parents brought them, or forced them. There are different answers. In the situation with Vika, she wanted to practice.

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We were inviting students, she saw our advertisement somewhere, got carried away, became interested and decided to come to a trial class. She came, tried it, she really liked it.

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She came to classes alone, she took part in all our events, she really liked it. I remember her by the fact that she wanted to proceed in sports very fast. We have an initial training group,

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there are beginners, more experienced athletes, and the administrator asked me what Vika wanted to join my group. I told her that she understood this for sure, whether she would survive,

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because we had such sports terms, because the training was harder there, the children were already more prepared there, so I said, “Will she survive?” Administrator says, “Yes, she really wants to.” 

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That was her perseverance and determination. She, nevertheless, moved to that group and now, at this moment, when this tragedy happened, 

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she was already engaged in this experimental group and took part in competitions, completed a category for a yellow belt, and was ahead of her abilities.

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I also would like to say that when she came to practice judo, her appearance, spirit, her character, were not inherent in judo. When she started to practice, I thought that it was possible for a short time,

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because she was so bright, modest, kind and talked very little. She was like that. But she was very tactile, she always before training, after training, she always came up, hugged,

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put her head on this way and left. If one saw her on the street, one couldn’t say that she practiced judo, but she really liked it. She never cried, she never complained. Last time…

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I regularly come to practice. The last time it was when we trained in May. There were competitions, then I prepared them for the competition, and on May 28, they competed.

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And during the final workout, I went into the gym, and she ran to me like this and was like this, “Oh, Diana Davydivna,

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I’ve missed you so much.” It was in the middle of May, and now this... And it’s impossible.

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The first most terrible moment was that morning. Over time I understood what happened in the morning in Kyiv. Things were only going to get worse – what happened later throughout Ukraine,

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but that particular morning, it was the most terrible for me, because I have two small children. I am not interested in news, I work a lot and educate athletes,

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so I spend most of my time training in the gym, and when it happened, I was in such shock that it seemed to me that this was all, that there were tanks near my house,

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and I couldn’t do anything. I was very scared. We took the children, the necessary belongings, we immediately left for one hall, where we had a bomb shelter. Where we train,

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in one of the halls, there is a bomb shelter, we stayed there for a day. It was very cold there, dusty, there was also my daughter-in-law whose child was six months old.

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We slept on the tatami there. Somehow it was very cold and dusty there, and we realized that if we didn’t leave Kyiv, then we could stay there for a long time,

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and it was not realistic to stay in this storage facility for a long time, the children would get sick right away, it was very cold there. We spent a day there from 5:00 a.m. of the 24th to 5:00 a.m. of the 25th.

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And in the morning, I woke up, it was very scary. We woke up in the morning, and Kyiv was empty, the streets were empty. We jumped into the car and drove, not knowing where.

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As we were driving down the street, we saw a tank driving towards us. We didn’t know if those were our tanks or not, because what could we know with my daughter-in-law.

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We were scared and so we drove through Ukraine, so we drove there to Western Ukraine making stops somewhere for a few days, we just drove. We didn’t stop by home,

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nothing like that. We took everything that we had, and the children – she has two children, I have – and we drove like that, we did not stop.

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Then, when it all calmed down a little after half a year, I started going to training, because there were children, children’s souls, everyone was waiting for you, everyone loved you, everyone hoped.

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I left the children with my parents and went there regularly once a month for two weeks. Training, competitions, training camps, and that’s how I work, I support them, there’s no other way.

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The most difficult thing is that it is impossible to organize a continuous training process, this is the most important thing in sports – a continuous training process.

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And secondly, the most difficult thing for athletes is that they cannot compete at international level precisely because of the admission of such Russian and Belarusian teams.

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This is the biggest problem right now. The world is already tired of this war, no one pays attention to it anymore, and assuming that this tragedy happened on June 1, 

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on the same day the Russian team competed in a big competition that gave points for the selection of athletes to participate in the Olympic Games, and our team Ukraine was still at home and in danger.

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This is terrible, because you understand that it is so hard for the country, and so hard for children, and so hard for athletes, but they continue to train based on some situations.

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Athletes who are in the Ukrainian national team, defending Ukraine on the international tatami, raise our flag and glorify us, they’ve spent most of their lives to get to the Olympic Games

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this is the main goal of every athlete who got into the Ukrainian team. Now it will happen that this year, in the last cycle, the majority of Russians will be admitted to the Olympics,

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to some of the majority of the competitions, and our athletes may simply not participate if they are admitted to the Olympics, or if they cannot pick up the number of points that they need,

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which is why it is, of course, such a great tragedy for the sport. Not only the war, that the athletes train and worry about their loved ones and relatives,

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but also whatever they have been doing for half their lives may not come true. I believe in victory, I really want the victory, all our land to be returned, that everything that is happening now,

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so that it is definitely not in vain, so that we reach our goal and so that the memory, and this is some sort of history that is happening, so that Ukrainians get what they deserve.

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So that they get their independence, the whole integral Ukraine, and that everything is the way our children deserve, because this is their future.