VIDEO: UNBROKEN Girl Yana Stepanenko Returning Back to Ukraine * 2024
VIDEO: UNBROKEN Girl Yana Stepanenko Returning Back to Ukraine * 2024

Yana lost both of her legs in the attack

“I want to support children who have also lost their legs and cannot run. I want them to see what I’m doing and say to themselves, ‘Yes! I can do it, too! I can run too.’”

Yana Stepanenko and her mother, Nataliia Stepanenko, were attempting to flee Ukraine in April 2021, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine. A Russian missile hit the Kramatorsk train station April 8, which killed almost 60 people and injured more than 100, according to the Ukrainian government. 

A 12-year-old Ukrainian girl, who made the news in 2022 when she lost her legs in a Russian missile attack, made headlines again on Sunday when she took to the cobbled streets of Lviv at the city’s half-marathon.

The mother-daughter pair were taken to California for prosthetics with help from the Right to Walk Foundation. They started walking again in July 2022.

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The story of the Stepanenko family

The story touched the whole world. In May, Nataliia Stepanenko and her 11-year-old twins Yana and Yaroslav came under rocket fire at Kramatorsk railway station. Mother lost one limb, daughter—both legs.

For a year, the Stepanenkas lived in San Diego, where mother and daughter underwent rehabilitation and prosthetics in an American clinic. The girl learned to walk again (with prostheses), attends school, rides a bicycle, and travels. She says she misses Ukraine and wants to return home more than anything. In Lviv, they were treated and prepared for prosthetics for several months. Then the family went to the USA.

Runs at Ukraine city half-marathon

As the war drags on, some severely injured Ukrainians who received medical help abroad are returning home. Yana Stepanenko and her mother have resettled in Lviv after a year of treatment and rehabilitation in the U.S.

Nearly 18 months after Yana Stepanenko, she ran 70 meters in the Lviv Half Marathon.
Shortly after the invasion by neighbouring Russia, which calls it a “special military operation”.

Yana became the face of a fundraising campaign for equipment for the UNBROKEN Kid’s rehabilitation department (on the basis of St. Nicholas Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv, where the girl was treated), which was initiated by the UNBROKEN charitable foundation and the charity platform.

Lost both legs as a result of the russian missile attack and her brother stay with her all the time

Young Yaroslav spends his days in the hospital room, caring for his mom and sister. They were severely wounded when a rocket hit. Yaroslav is doing everything he can to make their lives easier. He is a real hero.

Yana Stepanenko lost her legs in the Russia-Ukraine war * Todo lo relacionado