Many cities and villages of Ukraine have been under Russian occupation since February 24. Thousands of people could not evacuate and suffered from the criminal actions of the Russian army. One of the longest and most violent battles has happened for the town of Izyum in Kharkiv region.
Active warfare lasted there from late February to September the 10th, 2022. Only a quarter of more than 48 thousand residents remained in the city since active warfare started there.
According to Maksym Strelnikov, a deputy of the Izium City Council, since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion, about a thousand civilians have died in the town and 80% of the civilian infrastructure has been destroyed. The centralized heating system is completely destroyed. Though the work to restore electricity supply has already begun, gas heating cannot be restored this winter. We visited Izium and talked to people who survived during the Russian occupation.
Nina Mykhailivna said that they lived in basements for 2.5 months without water and food and heating. «Fortunately, we have good basements. We have a cooperative house and everyone has their own cell in the basement. We provided everything to those who needed it. And it has started: shooting from here, shooting to there. We lived on dried bread for 2.5 months. We had a piece of bread that was being collected for pig breeding and 3 sips of cold water per day…»
Nina Mykhailivna lost 10 kilograms during the six months of war, and her neighbor lost 23 kilograms. They cooked on firewood in the yard when the shelling ended. They ate stale bread and cattle feed.
On September 15, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that mass graves were found in Izium. During the exhumation, 445 bodies with signs of torture were found. Local residents say that people buried their loved ones near houses, covered with bedsheets.
«They were buried right next to the houses. They dug holes on Lenin Avenue, near the Christmas tree, close to the DOSAAF building. And then the Russians came and exgumated everyone. They graved them in one pit. They tied them up in rags, duvets, threw them on top of each other in the car and took them away.»
Only on September 10, the Ukrainian military entered the city and the residents received humanitarian aid. Currently, there are no stores, pharmacies, hospitals in the city, although there are still many civilians there. In the city we saw people with babies who were forced to hide in basements for several months.
Yevdokiya Stefanovna, an 85 year old resident of Izium, said that this is the second war she has survived. She says that during the Second World War there was no such kind of bombardment and famine. Russian occupation troops literally mocked the residents of Izium, not providing them with any humanitarian aid.
People say that the bombardment has almost stopped, but there is a catastrophic lack of food and medicine in the city. It is impossible to restore gas supply because of the numerous destructions in the city and local residents are afraid to think how they will survive the winter.
Text by Olga Kurshevska, photo by Vladyslav Krasnoshchok
