The essentials Just three kilometers from the Russian front, Kobzartsi is the city in southern Ukraine closest to enemy lines. Never conquered, it still resists. Meeting with the last residents who have not left it.
The road leading to Kobzartsi stretches due south, towards Kherson. It is better to follow the long dry canal sheltered by trees to get to the village, despite the bumps of a not very passable dirt road. Two strange clouds appear in the sky of a light blue uniform. Two smoke beans are just ahead of tracks: the remains of Russian missiles just shot down by Ukrainian anti-aircraft defenses. The pre-war town of 1,000 is only three kilometers from Moscow’s soldiers. According to local authorities, only about ten people still live there.
When many houses seem to have escaped the bombings, the village’s entire infrastructure is destroyed. On the walls of the cultural center, next to the gaping holes of broken windows, there is a grandiose mosaic dedicated to the glory of cosmonauts and Soviet science. “Come and see how we’re trying to survive,” invites Anatoly, emerging from the ruins of the adjacent city gym. With a black cap just over his ears, he walks around the crater of a shell in the middle of his garden. “I filled it up with soil, which will become a planter for me,” he jokes sadly.
“I still hear the outbursts”
At the time of the explosion, in June, Anatoly and Svetlana, his wife, were resting in their living room. “Everything flew! I just had time to throw myself at my wife to protect her. I can still hear the shrapnel flying by not far from my head.” A dozen bullets pierce the ceiling above the corner sofa. The windows were hastily replaced for the winter, insulate coarse foam bubbles. “There are only ten of us living in the city, but we’re not leaving. The Russians won’t win,” Svetlana assures, as she puts on a thick, feathered chapka.
The headmistress of the village school, which has since fallen into disrepair, approaches the door of this four-room apartment: “We still live up here, the Russians don’t scare us. They can bully us all they want, we won’t go down.” As she descends the stairs, however, she meets two men with defiant looks on their faces. A civilian and a soldier carry around trays of apples and harvested nuts, still muddy. The team quickly disappears into the darkness of the basement. Winter is coming.
“May God Punish You”
“This way!” calls Svetlana. The fall of the grenade severely injured Karat, the family dog. The animal hangs on three legs at the end of a metal chain. “The suffering, they even inflict it on animals… Blame on what? What I want to say to Putin: May God punish you. The Russian people need to see what is really happening here. Let it be seen that those suffering here are righteous civilians who have done nothing wrong.” A first explosion thunders through the air. A second breaks up in the distance.
When Svetlana seeks shelter, she meets her mother in the yard. Nadia, 84, with a bright red wool scarf screwed to her head, stands straight and motionless in the face of the impact.
The matriarch has seen others: ‘If I’m scared? Not at all. Me, when it rains bombs, I go for a walk in my garden the distant past.” Nadia pauses for a moment, her eyes unfocused. “When it started again I thought it was a bad dream… And one morning I opened my eyes and voila, it was war again…”