08/18/2026
At a ninth-grade prom in Kyiv in June, a boy named Yehor Holodryha walked onto the floor without a partner, raised one hand into the air as if it rested on a shoulder only he could see, and waltzed alone. The girl who should have been in his arms was Masha Polska, his classmate and dance partner, who had been killed weeks earlier by a Russian missile. Rather than replace her, he chose to dance the steps they had practiced together as if she were still beside him. "We danced how Masha would have wanted," he said afterward.
Masha was fifteen, and she had loved to dance since she was a small child. For months, she and nine of her classmates had rehearsed a waltz for their prom, meeting in a chilly school gym through the winter while Russian strikes battered Kyiv's power supply. As the most gifted dancer among them -- and the smallest -- she had been given the part she wanted most, the girl lifted and turned at the height of the dance. She helped choose the music, and she wanted every detail of the evening to be just right.
"She was trying to live, to live faster, to live as much as possible, to learn as much as possible," her teacher, Liudmyla Naumova, said. "This was our Masha."
She did not live to see the prom. In mid-May, a Russian missile tore into her apartment building and brought her family's home down in ruins. Her father and grandmother died. Her mother was dug out of the wreckage alive; Masha was found later, among the dead. She was one of three girls -- 24 people in total -- killed in that single building on that single night.
Her classmates decided the prom had to go on, not in spite of Masha but in memory of her. They returned to their rehearsals, and Yehor told his teacher he would dance alone or not dance at all -- to take another partner, he said, would be a betrayal. On the night itself, footage of the class practicing played on a screen behind him, Masha still among them, while he moved through the waltz and lifted his arms into the space where she was missing. When it was over and the room was applauding, Masha's weeping mother, who had come to watch, quietly slipped away.
Masha is one of at least 791 Ukrainian children killed since Russia's full-scale invasion began -- with another 2,752 wounded, according to Save the Children, drawing on United Nations figures compiled through April 2026. Her story opens a window onto everything the war has taken from the young people who have grown up inside it: fathers and mothers sent to fight, friends scattered to other countries, ordinary childhoods spent listening for sirens, and the milestones that arrive with someone forever absent.
Her best friend Laura had someone else named Masha in her life too -- a girlfriend who shared the name -- and there is an old Ukrainian belief that a wish made while standing between two people of the same name will come true. Laura would stand between her two Mashas and wish: "I wished that this war would end, that prom would come faster and that everyone would be OK." Only part of that wish came true.
Masha's life, and the friends who refused to let her be forgotten, were chronicled with great tenderness by Siobhán O'Grady and Liubov Sholudko of The New York Times at https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/30/world/europe/russia-ukraine-prom.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ulA.MgM-.BhNpfHMf3ccd&smid=url-share
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--> To support the mental-health and psychological recovery of Ukrainian children traumatized by the war -- children exactly like Masha's classmates -- you can support Voices of Children, a Ukrainian charity devoted to helping kids affected by the war, at https://voices.org.ua/en
--> To support emergency aid, child protection, and education for children caught in the war in Ukraine, you can support Save the Children at https://www.savethechildren.org/us/where-we-work/ukraine
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For a gripping novel about twin sisters torn apart when one is forcibly taken to Russia, we recommend "Kidnapped From Ukraine" for ages 10 and up at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9781546104513 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4ki6mZ1 (Amazon)
For a moving memoir by a 12-year-old Ukrainian girl about living through the Russian invasion: "You Don't Know What War Is: The Diary of a Young Girl from Ukraine" at https://bookshop.org/a/8011/9781454949695 (Bookshop) and https://amzn.to/4hGd6Oy (Amazon)
For several powerful books about past Russian invasions and occupations told through the experience of teen girls, we highly recommend "The Endless Steppe" (https://www.amightygirl.com/the-endless-steppe) and "Words on Fire" (https://www.amightygirl.com/words-on-fire), both for ages 10 and up, and "Between Shades of Gray" for ages 13 and up (https://www.amightygirl.com/between-shades-of-gray)
For more books for tweens and teens about girls who resisted authoritarian regimes throughout history, visit our blog post "The Fragility of Freedom: Mighty Girl Books About Life Under Authoritarianism" at https://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=32426
