KHARKIV, Ukraine — It was a moment when there was a buzz of excitement across northeastern Ukraine. It was mid-September. Ukrainian troops had just staged a major counteroffensive. The relentless Russian shelling that had pounded Kharkiv for months had finally eased.
Iryna Grycenko and her husband, Andriy, proposed to their 11-year-old daughter, Anastasiya, that they should get out of Kharkiv for a few days and spend the weekend at their dacha, a traditional country home, in nearby Chuhuiv. "Nasta," as the girl's family called her, was excited about the plan. She had a bike in Chuhuiv that her parents let her ride.
