Though they’ve escaped the chokehold of Putin’s army, these Ukrainians are still living with the horror inflicted on their village over a month-long occupation
“It was terrible when they came. They shot so much. They broke windows; they broke my roof; they smashed everything. I hid in the cellar; if not, I would have been dead,” said Valentina.Though the Russians are gone and their hideouts across the village have been destroyed, Valentina remains traumatized from the terror she witnessed over the course of the occupation.
“My mother always told me that it was so terrible during the World War, but I didn’t know that war could be so terrible. I had no idea,” she added. In the first few days of the war, Vilkul says that the city blocked its roads to stop Russian advances and gain time. They lost control of several villages, but they managed to stop the region from collapsing altogether. The situation is more stable now, but the fight is far from over. Even in Kryvyi Rih, sirens are heard several times a day as Russians attempt to push through southern villages like Kamyanka to reach Kryvyi Rih, a city that is key to controlling central Ukraine.
According to Alexander, the soldiers were begging for food at neighbors’ houses and moving around in big groups, ignoring the dangers posed by the Ukrainian drones flying above them. It’s no surprise that Russia is losing so much equipment and men in the war, he mused.