Kharkov's iconic Independence Square is a mass of rubble and rubble.
The electricity cables have collapsed and the regional administration building, a yellowish mass from the communist era, has become a smoking skeleton.
Opposite, a burned car and the remains of the yellow and blue canvas tent — like the Ukrainian flag — that until recently was occupied by volunteers collecting aid for civilians affected by the Donbas war.
An incessant and annoying beeping floods everything.
Like the thick, sour smell of burning that follows bombing.
In one of the corners of the huge, almost deserted square, Mikhail Ignatienko leans on two crutches as he looks at the remains of his grocery store, leveled by a missile attack by forces sent by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Russian troops lie in wait for Kharkov, the country's second-largest city in population (1.5 million), mostly Russian-speaking — like the citizens that the head of the Kremlin claims to protect in this total offensive — and a priority target in Putin's target , which seeks to capture the city to gain control of eastern Ukraine and facilitate a pincer to the Donbas region.
The Ukrainian army and citizen militias of all kinds, who patrol the streets of the center, rifle in hand, asking the few passersby for documentation, resist.
In an attempt to bring the city to its knees, the Kremlin has stepped up its attacks in recent days.
And it has done so against residential areas and civil infrastructure.
The bombings have already claimed the lives of 21 people and have left dozens injured.
The Kremlin ensures that it does not attack civilian targets.
“This is not a political or economic issue.
This is a war only because Putin hates the Ukrainians,” says Olga Volkova, a 42-year-old teacher, who walks hurriedly through the city center, where a month ago there was an ice skating rink, in which couples and Families spent the afternoon hanging out a few times and drinking mulled wine.
Volkova, small and short, with a hat pulled down almost to her eyebrows to protect herself from the cold drizzle that falls on Kharkiv this Wednesday, says that she tried to join the Territorial Defense Forces militia, which depends on the Government, but she did not they accepted.
“They only take in experienced people, so they didn't give me a gun, but I'm volunteering,” the teacher explains, shrugging.
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Volkova also helped with the destroyed marquee in Independence Square, which had been turned into a memorial to Ukrainian soldiers killed in the Donbas war against Kremlin-backed pro-Russian separatists — which has swept 14,000 soldiers in eight years. lives, between the two sides—, for which the volunteers are now looking for another location.
A woman walks next to damaged buildings in Kharkov, this Wednesday. María R. Sahuquillo
The scars of the bombings are evident in Kharkov, a city from which tides of cars, desperate to abandon the terror of constant airstrikes, with heavily armed checkpoints every few kilometers and roads littered with anti-tank plots, are pouring out.
Those who remain stand in endless queues at pharmacies, butcher shops and the few supermarkets that remain open.
The procedures must be done quickly, before the curfew begins at three in the afternoon, explains Rostislas Suranov, a 35-year-old salesman, who says that some neighborhoods are beginning to have problems with the supply of heating, electricity and water.
“It is the tactic for us to leave or surrender.
But this is our land and our city and they, in addition to being invaders, are cowards”, he affirms.
The deputy governor of Kharkov, Román Semenuja, believes that Putin's intention is to frighten the population.
"They can't get into the city because every time they try we hit them, so they seek to spread panic with missile strikes, hitting critical infrastructure and residential areas," he told local television.
"They want to demoralize us," he said.
This Wednesday, in another barrage, the Kremlin launched a team of paratroopers that tried to occupy a military hospital.
Ukrainian troops repulsed the attack after heavy urban fighting.
Already on Wednesday night, another attack on the city reaches the Uspenski Cathedral.
In the university area, the smell of burning, dust and ash are the prelude to destruction.
This Wednesday morning, shortly after the curfew was lifted, an attack by Putin's forces hit the Regional Police Department and the Faculty of Sociology of Karmazin National University there and caused a huge fire.
Five people who were walking around were injured by the huge explosion, which has sown pieces of cement, shrapnel, paper and glass throughout the area.
Kharkov, which was a very important educational forum during Soviet times, was before this offensive an increasingly thriving center of new technologies and a good point of exchange for international students.
The city, once seen as a small bastion closer to pro-Russian positions and occupied for a couple of days in 2014 by Kremlin-backed separatists and collaborators from across the border who declared the "people's republic of Kharkiv”, has turned in recent years more towards the West.
Like almost the whole country.
A month ago, when Russia continued to amass troops along the borders with Ukraine and the Kremlin's rhetoric against the West and against Kiev hardened, much of Kharkiv's citizenry did not believe in the escalation.
The area is not far from Donbas, so they had gotten used to living under the Russian threat, says Natalia Skivina, who has organized with some friends to help clean up the "mess" caused by the attacks.
"I am very angry.
They are attacking civilian buildings with people inside,” she exclaims.
At the end of January, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commented that Kharkov would be one of the first dishes on Putin's menu in Ukraine and that Moscow could aspire to occupy the city and behead his government, many thought he was exaggerating.
I didn't.
Since the Russian leader announced the "military operation" to "denazify" Ukraine and protect the Russian-speaking population from discrimination - especially in Donbas, where Putin has assured that they suffer "genocide" - the attacks on Kharkov have been sustained.
First, to military installations;
then, on strategic enclaves, such as power supply plants;
now, against residential areas.
To the west of the city, very close to the Jolodna Gora metro station, known for its reliefs of communist scenes, Andrei and Svetlana Derkaya walk over brush and glass to try to recover some metal panels from the walls of a small shopping center, which is about to collapse as a result of Monday's bombardment.
The area, part of a working-middle-class neighborhood, has been badly touched by Putin's attacks: roofless buildings, broken glass, burned-out cars.
Next to a cadet institute, a man tries to collect his belongings from what is left of his one-story house, while another tries to put up a large sheet of plastic to protect the only room in the house that is covered.
They have lost everything.
"Putin is a criminal," Derkaya laments, "he says he is a savior,
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