12-year-old Ukrainian Yana Stepanenko, who lost both legs during a Russian rocket attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk, took part in the Boston Marathon yesterday, April 13, and ran a 5-kilometer distance on prosthetics to fulfill the dream of defender Oleksandr Ryasny and demonstrate to the whole world the indomitability of the Ukrainian people.
“Nothing is impossible! Indomitable Yana Stepanenko ran her first Boston Marathon.
These are 5 kilometers, with which Yana once again proved that one should never give up.
Our pride! Thank you!” – informed Lviv Mayor Andriy Sadovy.
We will remind you that Yana and her family were invited to visit the USA by the American foundations One World Strong and Semper Fi & America’s Fund, which help veterans and civilians who suffered as a result of terrorist attacks and wars.
During the 6-day trip to Boston, the UNBROKEN Foundation has planned a series of events where the Stepanenko family will participate. This is a meeting with benefactors, partners and the Ukrainian diaspora.
Another goal of Yana in Boston is charity. This is a collection for a sports prosthesis for Oleksandr Ryasny, a seriously wounded defender, a patient of the NEZLAMNI center, who lost his leg in the war. The girl prefers that he, like her, also had the opportunity to run.
Oleksandr is 30 years old, he is from the Zaporizhzhia region. At the age of 18, he entered the military service under a contract, and later joined the ranks of the National Guard. Passed all stages of this war: ATO, OOS and, in the end, a full-scale invasion. He was seriously injured last year in September: a fragment of a projectile tore the defender’s thigh. Currently, he is already at the stage of active rehabilitation and prosthetics.
“I met Oleksandr recently, but he is very cheerful, and I really want to help him. My goal is to collect 615 thousand hryvnias for a prosthesis. And I really dream that the war will end as soon as possible and we all live peacefully,” Yana Stepanenko concludes.
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On April 8, 2022, as a result of a Russian terrorist attack on the railway station in Kramatorsk, Yana Stepanenko lost both legs. The photo of her being carried in the arms of a surgeon from the St. Nicholas Children’s Hospital of the First Medical Association of Lviv went viral all over the world. Yana received her first prostheses for walking and running in the USA. Last summer, after a year of recovery abroad, she returned to Ukraine. Here, Yana continued her rehabilitation and already managed to get new artificial limbs for walking in the UNBROKEN prosthetics workshop. Yana is currently an ambassador of the UNBROKEN Center.
The Boston Marathon is one of the largest and most prestigious in the world. About 30,000 people from all over the world take part in it every year.