Desperate need for Peace

The people of Ukraine desperately need peace, and none with more urgency than the children.

The side effects of the brutal, grinding war between Russian-backed separatist rebels and the pro-Europe government in Kiev include a surge in HIV infections that infants contract from their mothers because of a shortage of antiretroviral drugs. In the rebel-held city of Donetsk, under frequent shelling and rocket attacks by Ukrainian government forces, as many as 1,000 children are now living large parts of their lives underground in fetid cellars and bomb shelters

The director of the Kiev-based Democrat Initiatives Foundation, Irina Bekeshkina, says these will be “a tough couple days” for her country. “I see that Putin expects Ukraine to capitulate,” she told The Daily Beast. “That is his plan; he would like Ukraine to pay for the restoration of destroyed villages and towns in Donbass but make the so-called DNR and LNR republics (Donetsk and Luhansk) independent politically from Kiev.”

The war goes on. The children continue to suffer.

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