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Kharkiv after a Russian attack, April 21, 2022
Photo: Felipe Dana / dpa
A Russian missile recently hit a post office on the outskirts of Kharkov.
One dead, a few wounded.
A shell also hit one of the city's shopping malls.
The Russians keep striking at places where civilians congregate.
Humanitarian aid centers, shops and food depots for civilians have come under fire.
Residential areas without industrial infrastructure or military facilities are also regularly bombed.
Kharkiv has been at war for two months and can be hit anywhere in the city.
The outskirts are more affected, they are closer to the Russian positions.
But the center also comes under fire from time to time - just a few days ago, some central streets were heavily shelled.
The people of Kharkiv live with the knowledge that there are simply no safe places in the city.
And also within the borders of the country.
Recently, a Russian
"
hailstorm
"
burned down the car in the middle of the road with two occupants who simply burned to death inside their car,
"
hailstorm
"
is the Russian Grad rocket launcher capable of firing dozens of projectiles at once.
There is no military logic behind such actions.
The only explanation for this planned, chaotic brutality can be that the Russians want to frighten the population, make them surrender, lose faith in victory and create panic.
However, the opposite is true: Kharkiv is now living like a fortress surrounded by a belligerent army.
Everyone works for the same cause.
Volunteers, authorities and citizens support the army.
In the first six weeks of the war, the Ukrainian troops managed to drive the Russians out of the city, they even launched their own offensive and since then have reliably maintained the approaches to Kharkiv.
The anti-aircraft defenses are also working quite well – Russian planes stopped flying over the city a long time ago.
However, the Ukrainian troops are unable to protect the city from the
“
hailstones
”
.
Kharkiv suffers from this brutality.
It's killing the townsfolk - but not causing panic.
Networks of Help
Many residents of Kharkiv left the city, but a large part of those who stayed did so with full knowledge: to work and help.
A network of volunteer centers, aid centers and humanitarian aid distribution points has spread throughout the city.
Tens of thousands of Kharkiv citizens participate in voluntary activities and help those who have lost their homes or cannot afford everything they need.
Many people have been camping in subway stations or in the basements of their houses for weeks and need to be provided with the essentials - food, medicine and warmth.
It is above all the elderly who are proving to be helpless under the conditions of war.
While the city authorities are doing a lot to help them,
Kharkiv receives support from all over Ukraine.
The city is the focus of attention of many European countries, many foreign journalists are there.
This is very important – we must ensure that Russian aggression and Russian military atrocities do not disappear from the European media landscape, and we must all ensure that this war ends in a Ukrainian victory and that all perpetrators are punished fairly.
The pain that the lives of hundreds of thousands of people have been violently and brutally destroyed must not remain in vain.
Evil must be punished.
That is why it is important that we talk about what is happening now in our cities, what is happening at the front, what is happening in the Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories.
A grandmother was caught in the middle of the shelling in the morning and taken to a safe place.
She is 80 years old and has suffered two strokes.
Their children are on the other side of the front line, in the occupied territories.
You can't help her.
She had only taken a small backpack with clothes and a box of groceries from home and simply locked the apartment in which she has lived her whole life behind her.
No one knows if she can return to this one and if the apartment would survive the attacks.
She seemed stressed but sane.
She said she got shelled and someone yelled at her to drop.
»
If I fall, no one will pick me up!
«
, I called her back and walked on.
The crooked state of mind of war
There are hundreds of such stories, thousands of deaths and personal tragedies.
They form the twisted, painful body of this war, this tragedy of a country they are trying to destroy.
But at the heart of this body, at the heart of this twisted state of mind, lies the will of human beings to live their lives, to defend their freedom, to fight for their future.
Indeed, we pay a very high price for the right to remain Ukrainians.
However, we have no other choice.
So we continue to stay in our strongholds and defend them, believing that we will win.
We protect our elders and our children.
Our memories too.
And our future.
That's enough to believe and not be afraid.
Translation: Anika Zeller/ Kateryna Kharytych
