In the war-scarred city of Kharkiv, Ukraine, classrooms have been relegated to basements and subways.
Scripps News international correspondent Jason Bellini met 14-year-old Yeva Yatsyk while reporting on what’s been called the systematic destruction of Ukraine’s schools. Her own school was obliterated by a Russian missile. But it’s what’s still intact — her mind, her perspective, and her voice — that stayed with him.
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He asked if she’d consider writing something for Scripps News, a personal essay. She delivered far more than he expected. What he received stopped him in his tracks.
Yeva’s voice is raw, poetic, and fierce — full of detail that only comes from lived experience, and phrased in a way that’s both lyrical and unsentimental.
The essay reads like a dispatch from a young Ukrainian Joan Didion by way of a physics textbook.
What follows is her dispatch — lightly edited for clarity and flow, but entirely her own.
YEVA’S ESSAY
Kharkiv, Ukraine
One day, the world flipped. The normal felt strange. And what was once far away came crashing right up to our doorstep.
When the war began, no one handed you a manual called How to Live Under Shelling. Suitcases turned into escape plans. Trips became evacuations.
And everyone suddenly realized: aside from death, there’s nothing to fear — and aside from life, there’s nothing to lose. It wasn’t just the world that changed. We changed.
And even though you’re still just a teenager, you already know the types of rockets. You can tell the difference between an “incoming” and an “outgoing.” You understand that the most important things in life are not to lose your phone charger… and not to lose your composure.
My name is Yeva. I’m not a hero.
I’m just a girl who studies math, physics, and chemistry while the air-raid siren sings its operetta outside the window.
Science, at least, doesn’t betray you like politics does. It doesn’t doesn’t disappear when the power cuts out. It doesn’t explode. It’s as precise as a fist on a table. As real as a world refusing to give in to hysteria.
Equations are my shelter. Integrals — my therapy. When the TV screams about another offensive, I take out my notebook and solve a problem. Focused. Like a surgeon before an operation. Logic is my shield against chaos. It gives me control — when everything else feels like a scriptless movie made of absurdity.
And yes, I don’t just study. I win. Olympiads. Competitions. Logic battles with no rules. Not for certificates to hang on the wall — but to remind myself: I’m still alive. I still can. I still think… while the world shouts.
I love physics as much as I love peace — and both are in short supply. I don’t just see formulas. I see the future. I see Ukraine not as a country of ruins, but of innovation. If we have to survive, let it be with our brains. If we have to rebuild Kharkiv, let’s make it the capital of ideas. Architecture plus intellect. Concrete plus formulas.
Sometimes, I just want to be a kid. Not a “symbol of resilience.” Not a “young heroine.” Just a girl who dreams of summer, of daisy-covered sneakers, and of a boy with beautiful handwriting.
Because I’m not just surviving. I’m living. I’m dreaming. I’m joking. I’m studying to the sound of missiles and thinking: maybe all of this will come in handy someday — in a peaceful life.
I don’t want pity.
Don’t write “stay strong” in the comments.
I’m holding on. More than that.
I’m not just a girl from Kharkiv.
I’m a future scientist from Kharkiv.
We’re not waiting for recovery. We’re solving for it.
The world buzzes like a transformer under voltage. And I’m standing in the middle of it, with a pencil, a graph, and a mad belief in tomorrow.
Not because it’s easy. But because this is the path. My path. And I’m walking it — even barefoot. Even over the rubble.
For now, every day is a small victory.
If I managed to study, to laugh, to hug my mom, and to hear “everything’s okay” — then the day wasn’t wasted.
We didn’t choose this. But we chose not to give up.
We’re not made of steel. But we’re real.
P.S. The war goes on. But you’re reading this — and that means we’re still alive. And that’s already something.
