Until yesterday morning, the people of Yavoriv, in the far west of Ukraine, considered themselves lucky.
Blessed that the war was hundreds of miles away, that living on the threshold of Western Europe, their peaceful existence will continue at all costs.
Mothers told anxious children not to worry about the Russians.
“I told my people that the war would never reach us here,” says 29-year-old Yana Volbin.
“I said that the battle was so far away that it could have been in a foreign country.
Nevertheless, this small unremarkable town, having rolled up its sleeves, nevertheless contributed to the war effort.
Just 12 miles from the Polish border, many of the 12,000 citizens sheltered refugees, some men joined the volunteer corps, and everyone observed the 10 p.m. curfew, meticulously turning off the lights so as not to help the Russian night bombers.
True, they shared their town with a military training base.
“But this place was dedicated to peacemaking, right? says Yaroslav Smuk, 21, shaking his head. Not to Vladimir Putin.
The barracks at the International Peace and Security Center in Yavoriv are on fire after they were hit by a Russian missile strike early Sunday morning, killing 35 people and injuring 134 others.
Medical staff attend to a patient upon arrival at the Novoyavorivsk District Hospital on March 13, 2022 in Novoyavorivsk, Ukraine, following a rocket attack.
Released yesterday as the city was asleep, a shower of rockets brought death and destruction as it rained down on the International Peace and Security Center and sent flames into the night sky.
One resident was so certain that Yavoriv was immune to war that an earthquake was his first thought. Dawn showed the horrors in high relief.
Muffled screams came from the collapsed buildings, one flattened like a giant boot.
Nearby, a gigantic crater 30 feet deep has dug up the camp’s athletic field. And then bodies appeared from under the rubble. At least 35 dead and 134 injured.
One witness said: “We heard the alarm and went to the bomb shelter before returning when everything seemed to have stabilized.
Then, after about 30-40 minutes, somewhere between 5:00 and 5:30 in the morning, we heard a sudden pop. Our positions were bombed.
“We lay down on the floor. I heard sounds like rocket launches and explosions on the ground. Now we are looking for people under the rubble. Maybe someone is still alive.
Father Michael Haniak, 32, who lives nearby, recalls being awakened by a series of explosions. He looked out of his bedroom window just as the sky above the acres of forests and pastures flashed “like the most terrible lightning.”
A series of explosions shook his windows – “How they are still intact, I do not know” – and he instinctively sought cover behind his bed.
He later comforted his flock at Sunday Mass. The sentiments expressed were the same: “We never expected this, father. We thought we were safe here.
One woman near his church knelt down and laid a wreath of yellow flowers on the granite war memorial. The last time the war took Yavoriv dead was in 1941.
Smoke rises from damaged buildings after attack on Yavoriv military base as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues
In the hours following the missile attack, few people in the city left their homes. Some residents often travel to Poland, where they make good money picking fruit.
Yaroslav recalls that only last night he was looking forward to the strawberry season.
“But then the panic started,” he says. “People were asking each other if there would be more bombs?”
Slowly yesterday, the city regained its nerves. The apathetic youth gathered on the corners of the streets, as if calling them out. Above them, a red billboard that appeared the day after the invasion issued a now empty warning to Russian fighters: “This is our land and you will be buried on it.”
All the morning ambulances carried the wounded to the hospital before returning again and again as more and more bloody survivors emerged from the rubble.
By lunchtime, when the sirens finally stopped, Yavoriv began to get nervous. Were Russian spies following his streets? The journalists looked on with suspicion.
Our press accreditation was scrutinized and photographed eight times within an hour by police and volunteers.
At one of the several entrances to the Peacekeeping Center, a soldier told us, “It’s not safe here. The operation is still ongoing.
Across the street, a middle-aged woman at a bus stop suddenly began to cry, as if reacting to terrible news.
After refusing all persuasion, she could not speak and simply walked away, still crying.