The Lives They Took: Remembering Alina’s Friends and Family Lost to the War

By Steve Lemeshko

The personal cost of war is rarely measured only in numbers. The recent interview I conducted with Alina Lizunova, a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, captured the harrowing experience of displacement and survival amid mass atrocities. But beyond her own story, Alina carries the weight of many others: friends, neighbors, and loved ones who never escaped. During our conversation, Alina shared the memories of seven people she knew and loved. Some were civilians, some volunteered to fight, but all were people with hopes, dreams, families, and futures cut short.

This companion piece continues the goal of narrative empathy, to resist psychic numbing and help us see these individuals not as faceless casualties but as people whose absence leaves an aching void. Their names, their work, and the small human details of their lives are a reminder for all of us: every statistic hides a human story.

We include these stories to honor Alina’s wish that their families know they are remembered. And we invite you to read these stories with us—not as distant observers, but as fellow humans trying to hold space for lives that mattered. You can read Alina’s full interview here, which tells her own journey of escape and survival. What follows now is a tribute to the people who could not escape. These are the people Alina remembers.