Sharjah24 - AFP: The horrors of the war in Ukraine can be seen in 13-year-old Volodymyr's empty expression as he lies in the Okhmatdyt children's hospital in Kyiv, playing with a green balloon dog.
His father and his cousin were killed when their car was hit by gunfire two days after Russia's invasion. Volodymyr was shot in his jaw, his back, his arm and his leg.
"He can't walk yet, but the doctors told him that he'd be able to step on his feet later," says his exhausted-looking mother, Natalia, 34, sitting on a bed next to her son in a darkened room.
Before the war, he loved the things that teenagers anywhere in the world might do -- playing on his phone and taking their dog for a walk, she says.
Now he sits listlessly in bed, a livid scar running all the way up from his jaw to the dyed blonde streak of hair that hangs limp over his face.
He whispers that today he is doing "good", but doctors say that after three weeks in hospital, Volodymyr still faces more surgery.
The war was only two days old when the family's blue Lada car was caught up in a gun battle when Russian reconnaissance forces tried to push into Kyiv.
"We didn't realise who was shooting. As soon as everything ends, we will find out the details. They will be punished," his mother says, compulsively rubbing her arm.
She was also wounded. "My injuries will heal, but I can't revive my husband, and I can't revive my nephew too. He was six years old."
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