美国国家公共电台 NPR--An 11-year-old girl was among the casualties in Russia's strikes across Ukraine

An 11-year-old girl was among the casualties in Russia's strikes across Ukraine

Transcript¹

Thousands of civilians² have been killed in the war in Ukraine. Nasta Grycenko was among the casualties last month after Russia hit areas across Ukraine. Her father says she shouldn't be a statistic³.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

We commonly tell the story of the war in Ukraine in enormous terms - the largest countries in Europe, millions of refugees, nightmarish effects on the whole world economy. This morning, we tell the story of the war through the life of one small girl. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE⁴: It was a Saturday afternoon. There was a buzz of excitement across much of the Kharkiv region. Ukrainian troops had just staged a major counteroffensive, and the relentless⁵ Russian shelling around the city of Kharkiv had finally eased. Eleven-year-old Nasta Grycenko and her parents, Andriy and Iryna, had decided⁶ to spend the weekend at what they call their country house in the nearby city of Chuhuiv. Nasta's parents went out to deliver some humanitarian⁷ food packets to elderly residents when three large explosions rocked the city. A neighbor, Mychailo Kantemyriv, shows where he found Nasta after the missile struck.

MYCHAILO KANTEMYRIV: (Through interpreter) This is the fragment of the missile.

BEAUBIEN: He says she was still alive, still conscious, lying next to the crater⁸ where the house had once stood.

KANTEMYRIV: (Through interpreter) And she asked, why this happen to me? I didn't anything bad to them.

BEAUBIEN: Her parents heard the explosions. They could see the smoke. Iryna Grycenko's first thought was Nasta, and she raced towards their cottage.

Every day, local officials in Ukraine announce grim statistics about the war - this number of people were injured, that number of people died. According to the U.N., roughly 6,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine over the last seven months of war. Nasta's father, Andriy Grycenko, is adamant⁹ that his 11-year-old daughter shouldn't be a statistic. A statistic isn't something you pick up from the loading dock of the morgue, as Andriy and Iryna were forced to one cold, wet September morning.

IRYNA GRYCENKO: (Crying, speaking Russian).

BEAUBIEN: Nasta's body is carried down from the loading dock in a pink satin-lined coffin¹⁰ and slid into the back of a white cargo¹¹ van. As my translator, Polina Lytvynova, and I are getting into our own car, she tells me that I'm lucky I couldn't understand Iryna crying in Russian.

POLINA LYTVYNOVA: I could hear her saying, forgive me.

BEAUBIEN: As hard as the scene at the morgue was to watch, she says listening to a mother sobbing¹² over her daughter's body was even harder.

LYTVYNOVA: She said, like, I don't want to live without you. Who will meet me when I come home from work? And so on and so on. She cried and said, forgive me, forgive me, please.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Crying, non-English language spoken).

BEAUBIEN: Outside a Soviet-era apartment block, there's a viewing of Nasta's open casket.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Crying, non-English language spoken).

BEAUBIEN: Neighbors place bouquets¹³ of flowers on her coffin. A girl who appears to be about Nasta's age, 10 or 11 years old, cries inconsolably.

UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Crying).

BEAUBIEN: Valentina Ovcharenko, who lives in a flat two floors below Nasta's family, is passing out small bags of sweets. She says people in the neighborhood have been crying for days over Nasta's death. But she says it's been the worst for Nasta's mother.

VALENTINA OVCHARENKO: (Through interpreter) Her mother wanted to jump from the balcony. And, like, she was rescued from this.

BEAUBIEN: Nasta's parents both work for a clothing manufacturing company. Their apartment isn't fancy. Their cottage in Chuhuiv, with its apple trees and a vegetable garden, was also a simple, unassuming house before it was obliterated¹⁴. It wasn't on a prime piece of land. It backed up against an oil storage depot¹⁵. The same barrage¹⁶ of Russian missiles that killed Nasta blew up several large fuel tanks.

Like most kids in Ukraine, Nasta had been attending online classes. Sitting on benches in the playground outside their apartment block, Nasta's parents tell me, Nasta had always wanted a dog. This year, her 23-year-old brother found a white Labrador for her, which she was enchanted¹⁷ by. Nasta liked to sing and to watch patriotic¹⁸ videos on YouTube of Ukrainian soldiers.

GRYCENKO: (Through interpreter) Every time I came back home from work, she showed me videos. And she said, Mom, look at them. They're have so much fun. She really believed that they would protect her.

BEAUBIEN: Iryna stares into the distance as she talks about her daughter. Kharkiv is just three miles from the Russian border. It's a predominantly Russian-speaking part of Ukraine, and it had close ties to Russia before the war. Iryna and Andriy go back and forth¹⁹ between speaking Russian and Ukrainian as they talk about their daughter being killed by a Russian missile launched from Russian territory.

GRYCENKO: (Through interpreter) You know, I believe that not all people in Russia are so cruel and horrible, like Russian soldiers. But I just want to - the war to stop.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).

BEAUBIEN: Nasta's funeral takes place under a cold, drizzling²⁰ rain in a sprawling²¹ graveyard²² named Cemetery²³ 18 in Kharkiv.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).

BEAUBIEN: Just a few hundred yards from her grave, a funeral is also taking place for a soldier in a quadrant of the cemetery adorned²⁴ with yellow and blue Ukrainian flags.

(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMERING)

BEAUBIEN: After the nails are pounded into Nasta's coffin and she's buried in the ground, Andriy comes over to me and Polina. Tell the world what the Russians did to my daughter, he says. Iryna can barely walk. Her sister eases her into a car as they leave.

A few days after the funeral, Iryna says she's still trying to come to grips with the fact that there's a person in Russia who pushed the button that launched the missile that killed her daughter.

GRYCENKO: (Through interpreter) I don't wish them death because I never wish anyone dead, but I wish them to suffer like we suffer and to feel all our pain like we feel this pain.

BEAUBIEN: Losing a child, she says, is the worst pain in the world.

Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Kharkiv, Ukraine.

(SOUNDBITE OF TIGRAN HAMASYAN'S "LILAC")

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

3 statistic   

n.统计量；adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• Official statistics show real wages declining by 24%.官方统计数字表明实际工资下降了24%。
• There are no reliable statistics for the number of deaths in the battle.关于阵亡人数没有可靠的统计数字。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 relentless   

adj.残酷的，不留情的，无怜悯心的

参考例句：

• The traffic noise is relentless.交通车辆的噪音一刻也不停止。
• Their training has to be relentless.他们的训练必须是无情的。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

8 crater   

n.火山口，弹坑

参考例句：

• With a telescope you can see the huge crater of Ve-suvius.用望远镜你能看到巨大的维苏威火山口。
• They came to the lip of a dead crater.他们来到了一个死火山口。

9 adamant   

adj.坚硬的，固执的

参考例句：

• We are adamant on the building of a well-off society.在建设小康社会这一点上，我们是坚定不移的。
• Veronica was quite adamant that they should stay on.维罗妮卡坚信他们必须继续留下去。

10 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

11 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

12 sobbing   

<主方>Ⅰ adj.湿透的

参考例句：

• I heard a child sobbing loudly. 我听见有个孩子在呜呜地哭。
• Her eyes were red with recent sobbing. 她的眼睛因刚哭过而发红。

13 bouquets   

n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香

参考例句：

• The welcoming crowd waved their bouquets. 欢迎的群众摇动着花束。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• As the hero stepped off the platform, he was surrounded by several children with bouquets. 当英雄走下讲台时，已被几名手持花束的儿童围住了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 obliterated   

v.除去( obliterate的过去式和过去分词 )；涂去；擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭

参考例句：

• The building was completely obliterated by the bomb. 炸弹把那座建筑物彻底摧毁了。
• He began to drink, drank himself to intoxication, till he slept obliterated. 他一直喝，喝到他快要迷糊地睡着了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 depot   

n.仓库，储藏处；公共汽车站；火车站

参考例句：

• The depot is only a few blocks from here.公共汽车站离这儿只有几个街区。
• They leased the building as a depot.他们租用这栋大楼作仓库。

16 barrage   

n.火力网，弹幕

参考例句：

• The attack jumped off under cover of a barrage.进攻在炮火的掩护下开始了。
• The fierce artillery barrage destroyed the most part of the city in a few minutes.猛烈的炮火几分钟内便毁灭了这座城市的大部分地区。

17 enchanted   

adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• She was enchanted by the flowers you sent her. 她非常喜欢你送给她的花。
• He was enchanted by the idea. 他为这个主意而欣喜若狂。

18 patriotic   

adj.爱国的，有爱国心的

参考例句：

• His speech was full of patriotic sentiments.他的演说充满了爱国之情。
• The old man is a patriotic overseas Chinese.这位老人是一位爱国华侨。

19 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

20 drizzling   

下蒙蒙细雨，下毛毛雨( drizzle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The rain has almost stopped, it's just drizzling now. 雨几乎停了，现在只是在下毛毛雨。
• It was drizzling, and miserably cold and damp. 外面下着毛毛细雨，天气又冷又湿，令人难受。

21 sprawling   

adj.蔓生的，不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 )；蔓延；杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着（或躺着）

参考例句：

• He was sprawling in an armchair in front of the TV. 他伸开手脚坐在电视机前的一张扶手椅上。
• a modern sprawling town 一座杂乱无序拓展的现代城镇

22 graveyard   

n.坟场

参考例句：

• All the town was drifting toward the graveyard.全镇的人都象流水似地向那坟场涌过去。
• Living next to a graveyard would give me the creeps.居住在墓地旁边会使我毛骨悚然。

23 cemetery   

n.坟墓，墓地，坟场

参考例句：

• He was buried in the cemetery.他被葬在公墓。
• His remains were interred in the cemetery.他的遗体葬在墓地。

24 adorned   

[计]被修饰的

参考例句：

• The walls were adorned with paintings. 墙上装饰了绘画。
• And his coat was adorned with a flamboyant bunch of flowers. 他的外套上面装饰着一束艳丽刺目的鲜花。