It looks like any other calendar. Each month is marked with portraits of happy children — artworks, in fact.
In one, you see a boy and a girl behind a tree, probably playing hide and seek. In another, there’s a little girl hugging her grandfather, a man who radiates kindness and warmth — he looks like someone you’ve definitely met before. Then, there’s a little princess surrounded by giant, really huge, strawberries.
I bet she would have loved to see herself painted in the middle of them. She would have loved it, if she were alive. Her name was Zlata Rostochyl, she was four-and-a-half years old. She loved pancakes with chocolate spread, lived by the Black Sea in Odesa, and in the morning she would come into the kitchen saying “Meow, meow”. Because she was a kitten. Until a Russian ballistic missile hit her home.
So, our calendar, with stories and artworks by Ukrainian artists — including portraits of children — is not that simple. It’s a memorial. All the children in it died at the hands of Russia in 2024, month by month.
On each month’s page, you can see the date when a missile hit. Or when a drone flew into the bedroom. Next to the pictures, we have stories like those about the pancakes, or about deciding to join the military, like Illia did. He was 15 and he’s on our June page. He had been accepted to a military lyceum – the fact that his family learned only on the evening of the day he died. Illia dreamed of protecting his country.
The memorial calendar is the project that we – Amnesty International Ukraine and the Memorial Platform, a Ukrainian team that collects and publishes data on those killed in Russia’s acts of aggression — launched on February 24, the third anniversary of the all-out war.
Its aim is to remind people of the tragedies experienced by Ukrainians each and every day. Symbolically, the calendar starts not on January 1, but on February 24 because, although the war in Ukraine has been ongoing since 2014, this day marked a turning point of such significance for both Ukraine and the global community. And the calendar is not functional; the days in it correspond to the days of 2024 when these young people lost their lives.
The Memorial Calendar will be distributed by Amnesty worldwide, including within political and diplomatic circles. It’s not only an act of remembrance, but also a call to action to ensure that we are heard by those who can hold accountable those responsible for these terrible crimes.
And it’s not our voice, when I’m saying “that we are heard.” In fact, there is not a single word from us. We use only the voices of the victims. Of the parents of the children killed, where parents survived. Of other relatives, where whole families were killed.
What I love most in it — if there’s something to love in such a darkness, but Ukrainians do — is the foreword. It was written by a mother of a girl named Mariia, whose life was taken by a Russian drone in Kyiv in October.
“I am the mother of a wonderful girl, Mariia, who was killed by a Russian drone in her own bedroom in October, just one month before her 15th birthday.
I am the mother of a child who loved life, loved her country, and had countless dreams and plans that were never meant to come true. I appeal to you as parents who have children of your own.
Can you imagine that one evening, an enemy drone might fly into your child’s room and end their life? Could you live with that? Would you have enough words to condemn the murder of every Ukrainian child? Would you have enough statements on the necessity of rebuilding destroyed homes?
We see the complete lack of accountability for war crimes – those committed a year ago, three years ago, 10 years ago like the deliberate targeting of civilians, the destruction of entire cities, and the devastation of lives of thousands of families. Russia is lying to the world, but its crimes cannot be hidden,” writes Viktoriia Troianivska.
“We are not calling for peace at any price. We know all too well that any compromise with Russia might lead not to peace but to new graves for our children. What we are calling for is accountability. Because the absence of accountability always leads to impunity, and impunity, in turn, encourages new crimes”
And this is something almost every Ukrainian can relate to. My compatriots and I do not call for peace at any price, because the cost of “successful” negotiations with war criminals would be far higher. If any cost could be higher, that is.
Just imagine, for a moment, the parents of little children who were killed in attacks on residential areas that clearly amount to war crimes. Imagine them speaking, telling you almost the same thing: that their child was four, or seven, or 15. That their child loved chocolate, loved sports, loved pink dresses. And that they don’t want a compromise with Russia.
Because, and surely this should be obvious, when murderers are allowed to walk free they continue to commit crimes. They never stop. They merely return to kill again, and again, and again.
Lera Burlakova is a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and now works for Amnesty International in Ukraine. She is a journalist and former soldier. She served in combat from 2014-2017 after joining the Ukrainian army following the Russian invasion of Crimea. Her war diary “Life P.S.” received the UN Women in Arts award in 2021.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
US Bases in Europe
Military experts explain why US bases in Europe matter.
