In Ukraine, Youth Has Ended

If not for the war, Ira Lyubarskaya told me, she would probably have spent the spring walking the streets of her hometown, her earphones playing music by her favorite band, Imagine Dragons, or sitting on the rooftop of her apartment building, rereading Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood for the umpteenth time. And perhaps, had she been from Kyiv, or Lviv, or other parts of Ukraine that have suffered from Russia’s invasion but have recovered some modicum of normal day-to-day life, she might have. But Ira grew up in Mariupol.

So instead of sharing late-afternoon picnics with Vika, her best friend from childhood, atop the block they both grew up on, the pair spent weeks sleeping on stinking mattresses in the building’s basement. Instead of hanging out in the building’s courtyard, where they would climb the mulberry tree or while away hours on the swings, they used the space to cook food on an open fire, their apartments destroyed by Russian bombardment. Instead of joking and playing by the courtyard’s sandbox, as they had since they were infants, Ira helped Vika bury her parents there. Instead of pursuing her life’s passions, she was helping her family flee a city, her city, being utterly decimated.

Ira is 18. If not for the war, her life would stretch out in front of her, opportunities at every turn. A tall, athletic brunette, she wants to be a reporter, and was studying journalism at the local university. She recounted her experiences to me with