On Sept. 24, 2025 Ukrainian forces documented an atrocity in Shandryholove, Donetsk Oblast. A civilian family was killed, and their child was taken to be used as a human shield. Drone footage and intercepted communications captured the cold reality of the event, including the command “vsekh v raskhod” – an industrial-age military slang meaning “put everyone to the waste,” or summary execution. The story was reported and documented in real-time, but like so many others in this conflict, it quickly began to fade from the public eye.
Stories from Russia’s war in Ukraine move at a fast pace. They appear, are shared for a moment, and are then replaced by the next strike, the next village, or the next list of names most of us will never remember. Even events that once would have dominated headlines for weeks now pass in days, fighting for space in a world where everything feels urgent all the time. However, when documented violations like the one in Shandryholove slip from view before visible accountability can follow, we aren’t just losing information – we are allowing a dangerous lowering of the standards meant to protect human life.
The danger of this collective forgetting is not theoretical. Just months after Shandryholove, the pattern repeated in Pokrovsk. In November 2025, Russian commanders were again intercepted ordering troops to use a man, a woman, and their 13-year-old child as human shields during an assault. When we allow one atrocity to fade into “background noise,” we are essentially green-lighting the next.
The information about Shandryholove came in pieces – video footage, radio intercepts, and partial accounts. It was reported and commented on. Ukraine’s Ombudsman noted such an incident violated the Fourth Geneva Convention and constituted a crime against humanity. It was documented. Then it started to recede into the archives, where its progress is now difficult for the public to track.
Without a deliberate effort to keep these cases visible, the quiet work of reaching a resolution risks being left behind by a news cycle that has already moved on.
Without a clear, ongoing narrative, it is difficult to connect Shandryholove to the 369 residents of Yahidne who were used as human shields in March 2022. Each report stays in its own bubble. The connection that allows us to see these acts not as isolated tragedies, but as a systematic pattern, is dangerously thin.
However, such stories do not live in separate bubbles. I see this in my work with Ukrainian refugee families. They carry these stories with them – not as headlines, but as a connected reality of disappeared neighbors and occupied villages. For them, these are not isolated incidents competing for attention; they are a singular, ongoing pattern. There is a natural gap between the slow, careful pace of legal work and the fast, shifting pace of modern public attention. And without a deliberate effort to keep these cases visible, the quiet work of reaching a resolution risks being left behind by a news cycle that has already moved on.
What disappears with quick news cycles isn’t just information; it is the social context that gives documentation its weight. The Shandryholove case has clear evidence: drone footage, radio intercepts, and real-time observation. In legal terms, these are the building blocks of a case. But in human terms, documentation alone cannot sustain the collective memory needed to see a process through to its resolution.
International accountability is a slow process that often takes years. Public attention moves in seconds. This is a natural development. Investigators continue their work behind the scenes, but without the world’s continued interest, that work risks becoming invisible. When a case fades from the headlines, we lose the shared public space where justice is not just done but seen and understood by society.
Over 3,000 children have been killed or injured in Ukraine since 2022. Behind the official count of nearly 700 confirmed deaths, there are thousands more whose lives have been permanently shattered by injury and displacement. Each of these lives represents a massive effort by experts to find the truth. The tragedy isn’t that the work isn’t happening – it’s that as these stories recede, the families are left to carry the weight of waiting in silence.
Investigators continue their work behind the scenes, but without the world’s continued interest, that work risks becoming invisible.
The way we handle these stories sets a precedent that extends far beyond the borders of Ukraine. The standards we set – what violations receive sustained attention versus what fades into background noise – don’t stay confined to one battlefield.
When violations are documented and then allowed to fade without follow-through, we’re establishing practical precedents about what generates lasting consequences versus what can be absorbed into the constant flow of crisis news. If clear evidence can pass through public attention in days, other actors are noting that pattern. They’re learning how far they can go with minimal international consequence as long as it happens amid enough other crises to divide attention.
In Shandryholove or Pokrovsk, what risks disappearing most completely is the child – present in the forensic reports but absent from any meaningful visible consequence. Her case is in danger of becoming just another detail in a war that produces more details than any system can hold. We cannot prevent every story from fading, but we can be more deliberate about which ones we refuse to let go. Accountability relies on a public that refuses to look away while the slow work of justice unfolds.
The question isn’t whether we can pay attention to everything – we can’t. The question is whether we will be more intentional about what we choose to remember, and what we allow ourselves to forget.
The views expressed in this opinion article are the author’s and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.