Published on: 04/18/2022 – 22:54
Russian troops entered the city of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine on Monday, April 18, 2022, about fifty kilometers from Kramatorsk, the Ukrainian capital of Donbass and one of Moscow’s targets in that region. On-site meeting with the mayor of the city.
With our special correspondents in Kramatorsk, Clea Broadhurst and Jad El Khoury
Since the beginning of the conflict, three quarters of Kramatorsk’s population have left the city.
For Oleksandr Goncharenko, the mayor of this normally peaceful small town, the cost of war is high, but Kramatorsk braces itself in the event of a Russian offensive.
We need to stock up on enough medicine, food and water in case the roads that supply us become blocked. The Russians are coming through Izium, 70 kilometers away, and want to cut us off from central Ukraine
Oleksandr Goncharenko says he has enough for at least two months. Their priority is the protection of the population, especially since, in his opinion, Russian attacks are aimed directly at civilians from the start.
For example, there were no soldiers on the station, only civilians. Maybe they wanted to spread panic… or just destroy our evacuation center to make it harder for us. This missile had a target, we cannot speak of a miss. All strikes that fell in Kramatorsk were directed against civilian buildings. Nobody is immune. To sit here? No one is safe, it can happen anywhere.
Provisions are piling up in Kramatorsk City Hall in case the city falls into the hands of Russian troops. © RFI/Clea Broadhurst
Kramatorsk residents wondered what the price was to pay between losing their homes and losing their lives. Oleksandr Goncharenko believes those who stay will fight to the end.
►Read again: In Kramatorsk in Donbass these Ukrainians who decided to stay