Evil Next Door
The gym held its breath. A fragile girl stepped onto the gymnastics carpet. With the first beats of the music, she started her routine with great confidence and fluid flexibility, performing cartwheels, splits, graceful pirouettes, and balancing on one leg with ease. A genuine smile lit up her face, while her eyes sparkled with excitement.
Nine-year-old Sasha Paskal dreams of an Olympic gold medal one day. But will she be allowed to compete? For now, she isn’t thinking about that yet. Her dream carries her forward. Only taking off the prosthetic leg reminds her of the injustice.
What was this child guilty of, that she had to survive a sophisticated missile strike in the Odesa region at the age of five? Sasha was pinned by concrete slabs and barely pulled out in time to be rushed to the hospital. The girl spent 15 days in a coma. She suffered an open fracture in her left arm, lost her pinky finger, and had broken ribs. She also underwent an amputation.
Eleven-year-old Roman Oleksiv is finally stepping into the sneakers he’s dreamed of after waiting three years for his foot to grow to size 8. These were his mother’s sneakers. She never had the chance to wear them. Roman last held her hand four years ago. She perished in a missile strike right before his eyes. It happened in Vinnytsia while visiting relatives. Roman has undergone 36 skin graft surgeries. Forty-five percent of his body was severely burned. For over two years, his face, arms, and legs were covered by a special compression mask. Today, he practices dance and plays the button accordion, even though it is still difficult for him to regain movement in his fingers and his foot does not obey him. However, this does not stop him. He strives to live a full life.
The captain of the basketball team, 14-year-old Nastia Tsiapalo, is relearning how to walk, brush her hair, and dress herself. In November 2025, she was rescued from the balcony of a burning high-rise in Ternopil, unconscious. She had been hanging upside down for nearly an hour. A Russian missile hit the apartment building, taking the lives of 38 people. That morning, Nastia lost her mother and grandfather, who burned to death. Nastia was taken to the hospital in a medically induced coma and underwent immediate surgery. Nastia endured the terrible pain of her burns. Even changing the bandages required anesthesia. Together with her grandmother, Nastia dreams of returning home. A home that no longer exists.
These are three stories of children from different regions of Ukraine. Like over 3,000 other kids who were killed or wounded, they were caught in the crossfire of Russian weapons. Did these children deserve such pain? Who will take responsibility for their suffering? Who can restore the stolen lives? Evil relies on our short memory and its own gloss. It hopes that scars will heal and that the numbers will be forgotten.
The fates of these children, like those of millions of other Ukrainians, have become prey to Evil. An Evil that has a completely human face. It habitually prepares tea or coffee in the morning, makes cheese toast, or fries pancakes, and from its warm kitchen, wishes darkness and cold upon its neighbors.
Modern Evil does not speak with the voice of Mephistopheles, nor does it have hooves. On the contrary, its shoes are polished to a shine. If it accidentally steps on your foot in line, it will certainly apologize, but then calmly “like” a photo of your destroyed home.
This Evil does not smell of sulfur. It smells like fabric softener and hand sanitizer. Its main weapon is not a sword, but joyful comments under news about a neighbor’s death. Evil can cry over a sick cat or a grandchild’s scraped knee but remains cold when looking at mass graves behind a fence. Every morning, while Evil makes the bed neatly, neighbors try to find their loved ones under the rubble.
“I am just a drop in the ocean,” says modern Evil, hiding behind “polite” smiles.
But such drops form the storm that swallows entire cities.Evil does not live in hell. It creates hell for others. The same hand that gently strokes a child’s hair is the one that fires the missile.
However, Evil has miscalculated. It can take away a home, a memory, or a family, but it is powerless against the light that Sasha radiates on the gymnastics carpet, the music Roman creates with his fingers, and every painful step that Nastia takes.
Like thousands of other survivors, these children destroy the darkness every day with their resilience. They are living proof that life continues. They are building a new country today, where Evil will never find a place again. No matter how diligently it polishes its shoes.
This is truly heartbreaking.