As Russia retakes Kursk, Ukrainians ask, 'Was it worth it?'
When Mariia Pankova last exchanged messages with her close friend Pavlo in December, she had no idea that he was among the Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia's Kursk region.
She found out when a fellow soldier told her several days later that her friend, Pavlo Humeniuk, 24, a combat engineer in Ukraine's 47th Magura brigade, had gone missing near the village of Novoivanivka in Kursk on December 6.
Almost four months have passed and there has been no further information about Pavlo's fate, Pankova said with his relatives. She keeps searching on Telegram and Facebook hoping to find out whether he is dead or alive.
Pankova, 25, believes the cost of Ukraine's risky incursion into Russia may have been too high.
"I'm just not sure it was worth it," she said, large teardrops running down her face when talking about her missing friend,
"We're not invaders. We just need our territories back, we do not need the Russian one."
When Mariia Pankova last exchanged messages with her close friend Pavlo in December, she had no idea that he was among the Ukrainian troops fighting in Russia's Kursk region.
She found out when a fellow soldier told her several days later that her friend, Pavlo Humeniuk, 24, a combat engineer in Ukraine's 47th Magura brigade, had gone missing near the village of Novoivanivka in Kursk on December 6.
Almost four months have passed and there has been no further information about Pavlo's fate, Pankova said with his relatives. She keeps searching on Telegram and Facebook hoping to find out whether he is dead or alive.
Pankova, 25, believes the cost of Ukraine's risky incursion into Russia may have been too high.
"I'm just not sure it was worth it," she said, large teardrops running down her face when talking about her missing friend,
"We're not invaders. We just need our territories back, we do not need the Russian one."
2 months ago
