By Kontur and AFP | 2025-04-17

KHARKIV -- Like thousands of senior citizens in Ukraine, Zinaida Gyrenko was spending the sunset years of her life in a shelter, her retirement upended by Russia's invasion.

Her memory was foggy, but the moment Russia struck her village in the northeast of the country, sending her sprawling, was crystal clear.

"It was so loud. Everyone fell to the ground. I was lying there. Then I opened my eyes again, and I thought: I'm still alive," Gyrenko, born in 1939, told AFP.

The invasion launched by the Kremlin more than three years ago has disproportionately affected Ukraine's seniors.

A quarter of Ukraine's inhabitants are older than 60, but they accounted for almost half of civilian deaths near the front last year, according to the United Nations.

The elderly are often the last to leave frontline territories, saying they lack money or strength to relocate -- or the will to part with their homes.

Gyrenko lived in the village of Zaoskillya, Kharkiv province, until last May. Russia has been advancing on the nearby town of Kupiansk farther west, raining down bombs on settlements nearby.

She now stays at a dormitory-turned-shelter for senior citizens called Velyka Rodina, meaning Big Family, in Kharkiv city further north.

Gyrenko was grateful to her caregivers for looking after what she called the "secondhand" residents. She said she could no longer remember her age: "I'm from '39. You do the math."

She said she had worked in the rail industry her whole life.

"I've loved the railroads very, very much, ever since I was a child," she said, her blue eyes welling up with tears.

Dignity in retirement

The needs of the elderly are immense, shelter founder Olga Kleytman said.

In Kharkiv alone, she estimated that 32,000 seniors who had fled their homes needed help.

Kharkiv province has only eight public retirement homes -- not enough to meet demand, she said.

Authorities have not provided financial support to her establishment, which had 60 residents at the end of March and depends solely on private donations, she added.

"They have worked all their lives, and they deserve a decent old age," the 56-year-old said.

"This is about our dignity."

An architect by profession, Kleytman said she had plans to expand.

Since most of the seniors come from rural areas, she wants to create a large vegetable garden with animals to reproduce village "smells and sounds."

One of the residents, 50-year-old Sergiy Yukovsky, who had both legs amputated after an accident at work, used to live in the countryside with his younger brother.

His brother was killed by a land mine while "fetching wood" near the village of Kochubeivka, also in Kharkiv province.

"I don't even know where he is buried," Yukovsky said. For a year, he lived alone before being evacuated to Kharkiv city.

The future is bleak, he confessed, but added: "Ukraine will have it all."

Hopes for future

In another room, 84-year-old Yuri Myagky lay in bed facing a window.

He was from Saltivka, a Kharkiv suburb that Russian forces bombed heavily in an attempt to capture Kharkiv city at the start of the invasion.

"Has Ukraine been divided?" Myagky asked, confused -- like so many others -- by the twists and turns of the conflict.

Since last September, Gyrenko has been sharing a room with Olga Zolotareva, 71, who grumbled when her roommate lost the thread of their conversation.

For 28 years, Zolotareva looked after people with learning disabilities in the town of Lyptsi, not far from the Russian border.

When the invasion began, authorities evacuated them, but Zolotareva stayed.

Last May, when Russia launched a new offensive on Kharkiv province, she was in her house when "there was a strike."

A shard "from I don't know what" broke her right leg, she said, showing her scar.

As well as peace, she hopes to be able to walk normally again.

Gyrenko said she remained optimistic, despite everything.

"Happiness, as I understand, means not being hungry, not being without clothes and not being shoeless," she said.