Page 72 - bneMag Dec22

72 I Eastern Europe bne December 2022
Thank God, it went without any major problems.
“But a few days later, our house was hit by a rocket, causing all the damage you see. We started packing to leave, but the Russians noticed – and that’s when they found Serhiy. They took him for five days and tortured him badly,” Olga says.
The days melded together into a gray blur. Spring turned into summer, the days grew warmer, but the Russians stayed. They were inescapable.
The nightmare was over
Then, as suddenly as it all began, their nightmare came to an end.
“I will not say that on the last day of the occupation, we were waiting for the Ukrainian military, because we were waiting for them every day,” Olga Balan says. “All seven months we looked for them from the window. It was heartbreaking, because in our country, you are a free person, you can do what you want, you can freely express yourself. In their country [Russia], this is not possible – if you are told the sun is green, then you should repeat it. So when our troops finally entered it is impossible to convey the joy we all felt. The nightmare was over,” she says.
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The Balans plan to rebuild their destroyed house. They acknowledge that the winter will be difficult, but after surviving the occupation, a little snow will be nothing in comparison.
There are many signs of the Russians’ presence, but the school across from the Balans’ house has a particular
on the wall is an ominous message, presumably left just before the Russian retreat: three words reading “we will return”.
Mykola Havlenko, a 72-year old local pensioner, is waiting to receive a parcel in the crowd formed around the postal truck in the ruined centre of town.
He hopes he’ll never see another Russian again.
“The first day [the Russians came],
on March 10, we looked at them in disbelief, but thought maybe they were still human,” he says. “We’re all Slavs, but it turns out that they are completely different from us. They believe very strongly in their propaganda – they would tell us, ‘for eight years you [Ukrainians] bombed children in Donetsk and Luhansk, now it is your turn [to suffer].’ They used this to justify whatever crimes they wanted,” Havlenko says.
Even at the very end, the Russian depredations did not slow.
“On the last day [of the occupation], the Russians knew that they would leave the village,” Havlenko says. “So they spent their final hours robbing. My friend was out at the market, and he returned home to find two Buryats
“When our troops finally entered it is impossible to convey the joy we all felt. The nightmare
was over”
concentration. The letter ‘Z’ is still spraypainted on its outer walls, leaving no doubt as to its occupants. In the basement, where the Russian soldiers camped, personal effects and the remains of food – including, of course, empty bottles of vodka - are scattered about.
One tin of stewed beef on the table made a particularly long journey: its label indicates it was made in Buryatia, the Russian region bordering Mongolia from which so many of the Russian military’s recruits are drawn. Scrawled
sitting at his table, eating his food. As if it was their own home!” he says with evident disgust.
The Russians are unlikely to return,
as their slogan in the school promised. Their retreat from Kherson across the river has left them on the back foot, struggling to maintain their current positions, let alone take new ones.
For the people in Velika Oleksandrivka, Vysokopillya and elsewhere, the struggle to rebuild their shattered homes will be a long one, but the main nightmare – the occupation – is over.