There are hardly any cars on the regional road that deviates from the main route between the towns of Izium Y Slavyansk and heads, not only towards some small districts inhabited by peasants, but also to the Sviatogorsk cave monasteryan imposing Orthodox religious construction dating from the 16th century and which served, during the early stages of the Russian attack on Ukraine, a refuge from the bombing for hundreds of locals. The repeated roar of artillery fire coming from the horizon, in addition to the multitude of projectiles embedded in the asphalt, which force the few drivers who enter these slums to make a sudden swerve, constitute a reliable indicator that it is a disputed areawhere anything can happen.
It is also one of the points in the Ukrainian geography where the troops of the kremlin are implementing their new military tactics in this second phase of the conflictgiven the poor results obtained during the Blitzkrieg of the early days. It is no longer a matter of blindly launching columns of armored vehicles that end up being easy prey for well-equipped local soldiers with anti tank missiles provided by the West. What the Kremlin army is now attempting is precisely the opposite: to heavily bombard an area, for days or even weeks, before proceeding to slow and cautious military occupation. A strategy that, according to what was seen in Sviatogorsk and adjacent towns, exponentially multiplies the suffering of the civilian population, leaving isolated the inhabitants with fewer resources.
“All these bombings are fresh & rdquor ;, corroborates Dima, recently arrived, aboard a van, to Bohorodychne, the last town before reaching the monastery, while contemplating the enormous open gaps and the rockets embedded in the road, a real danger for the road safety of the place. No one circulates among the wooden houses of the village, no one seems to work among the small subsistence gardens, no one opens the door or responds to the requests of the strangers who have just arrived in town. in the middle of a eerie silence interrupted by some dry deflagrations that make the ground vibrate every so often, the slim figure of Dimitri Marchuk appears, with obvious symptoms of drunken euphoria and in a hurry because, he says, he has to milk some cows as soon as possible.
empty towns
“80% of the townspeople have left. I prefer to stay, I have nowhere to go & rdquor ;, she explains, without much enthusiasm, before the microphones. Before the Russian invasion he worked at the monastery. He now does what he can to get ahead, between the bombings, together with his wife. With the town practically deserted, the Ukrainian military are the only ones who can still be seen in Bohorodychne, located north of Donetskin it donbas ukrainian A dilapidated Soviet vehicle, painted in camouflage colors and with three soldiers inside, circulates in a hurry, patrolling the district and taking note of medical emergencies. “Further down there is a woman with a husband who cannot walk, they have been wanting to leave the village for a long time but they are trapped& rdquor ;, explain several soldiers.
The marriage in question is made up of Vera Gerosimenko and Anatoli Dronichev, 60 years old, the latter with reduced mobility due to a stroke suffered in 2016. The continuous and nearby explosions have significantly worsened their situation, causing them stress and even leaving them stunned for a long time. Sitting on a bed, with a twisted face and a lost look, Anatoli is delirious and cannot make himself understood.
Without access to his usual medicines, his wife Vera, turned into his occasional nurse, implores someone to take them to Slaviansk, thirty kilometers away, where there is at least one hospital and he can be treated properly. “We are responsible for this situation; they had offered us several times to be evacuated, but we refused. At first Anatoli told me that we better stay, that this was just a game, a game of chess & rdquor ;, explains Vera. “Now we don’t care about everything, we have to get out of here & rdquor ;.
“I knew an angel would come soon”
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In the midst of Vera’s tears, prayers and laments, it is Dima who finally makes the decision to extract the couple trapped in the war mousetrap what Bohorodychne has become. With his powerful arms, he grabs Anatoli’s skeletal body between the latter’s moans and cries and introduces him into his vehicle, while Vera hastily grabs the identity documents of the couple, a couple of bags with belongings and even the chair of wheels. Her haste to get out of there is such that she doesn’t even mind leaving the family dog. “He had been praying for a long time, I knew an angel would come soon to take us & rdquor ;, thank heaven.
An hour later Dima’s van pulls up in front of the hospital’s main entrance where Anatoli is picked up by local medical staff. Now far from the danger and the shots from the Russian artillery, Vera’s main concern is having been able to talk too much with the journalists. “I hope that for having given an interview they don’t end up locking me up & rdquor ;, she says in a typical Soviet reflex action.