A huge ashtray with more than twenty cigarette butts and a few breadcrumbs sits enthroned on Olga’s kitchen table, 46 years old. Half a meter away, behind the white curtains, the glass of the window, broken by an impact, can be seen. With no stress medication, the woman admits she’s turning to alcohol. In the background the constant hum of detonations that shake Kupiansk every day. For six months, this city became a kind of capital of the Russian occupation of the Kharkov region in north-eastern Ukraine. A counter-offensive took Kiev back control in September. However, local troops were not able to completely drive out the Russian invaders, and in these six months the enemy siege did not stop. Based on this evidence, local authorities and neighbors know that Moscow wants to recapture Kupyansk. The city, which occupies a strategic point between Kharkiv and Lugansk, now welcomes barely 20% of its 30,000 residents, according to local government figures.
The hope and relative optimism that hung in the air after September’s release has gradually faded. The nights when the zambombazos cause insomnia seem endless, says Olga (who doesn’t want to give her last name, like other interviewees for this report), as she prepares a campfire on the street to roast some meat skewers in the company of a neighbor . The house next door, about ten meters away, was destroyed by a rocket a few weeks ago. The spiral of war took his life and that of thousands of residents of this district more than a year ago. Despite everything, he has no intention of leaving his apartment on the ground floor of a building where almost nobody lives anymore. Authorities have ordered the evacuation of citizens of Kupiansk and nearby towns. They offer them transportation, shelter and food in a safe area, but like Olga, not everyone agrees to go.
More information
The two armies face each other about nine kilometers from the city, according to interim mayor Andrii Besedin, who just turned 40. “The terrorists [en referencia a los rusos] They only fight civilians, they don’t attack the army. The main problem here is the bombing of hospitals, schools, infrastructure… Everything that is important for civilians to stay here,” Besedin points out in an office decorated with the signed flags of the various units that led the counteroffensive.
Besedin was appointed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after his predecessor rolled out a red carpet for the Russians to occupy Kupyansk without breaking a sweat. After fleeing to Russia, the “treacherous” mayor makes it clear that the current authorities will not make it easy for Kremlin troops when they reach the city again.
Olga, a 46-year-old neighbor who refuses to leave her home in Kupiansk.Luis de Vega
Subscribe to EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without limits.
subscribe to
Today, the Oskil River, which crosses the city, acts as a natural boundary in the conflict. A temporary bridge was built next to the destroyed bridge, allowing passage to the east bank, where hostilities are concentrated. There are towns where some lead an almost ghostly existence only two or three kilometers from the front. This is also the case in Petropavlivka, whose deserted dirt roads are pierced by the sound of the Ukrainian army’s Grad rocket batteries. Alina pulling a cart of dirt is the only person this special envoy sees doing any activity on public roads. He just broods between his teeth that he won’t have a chance to leave before he makes his way to his house. He proceeds as if the noise had not reached his ears.
Volodimir, 51, shows up in the same area. It’s another of those still anchored in the city. So much so that he hardly cares that his right foot has had an unhealed wound for six months from a shrapnel hit after an explosion near the school building. He walks around in a military suit and without shoes. He gets down on one knee to show the injury hidden by the sock.
Open-air market in the city of Kupiansk on March 15. Luis de Vega
He lives alone in a house, sharing a room with animals, especially goats and their young, which he proudly displays. Make it clear that you will not give up on them. The visit has a certain Berlang touch. What was once a living room is now an enclosure with a sideboard that still holds the owner’s vases, keys, and other belongings. The animals prefer to hide behind this piece of furniture before the stranger arrives. The room’s windows were blown out by the blasts and the ceiling fell halfway down.
In fact, Volodimir’s home farm has suffered several direct effects. Part of the summer kitchen, a second building, has been reduced to a pile of bricks. The man still keeps the remains of the projectiles. A few meters away is the cage in which a large rabbit is roaming around and other goats in a kind of stable with a small window through which you can look out curiously. “Many years ago I worked as a photographer in Hungary,” Volodimir recalls when the reporter held the camera to his face.
After leaving Petropavlivka, María, 80, who met EL PAÍS at a food distribution in November, continues to live with her dogs. At the moment he is surviving thanks to the help of the volunteers, although sometimes, he explains, it is difficult to know in which houses people still live. Like many others, María’s house, built at an intersection where a burned-out tank is standing, is damaged by the attacks. She admits that they came to pick her up several times, but what she misses the most, more than the evacuation, are shoes.
A man on a motorcycle crosses the almost deserted town of Petropavlivka.Luis de Vega
“It doesn’t make sense that there are still civilians there. They are two or three kilometers away from the fighting and evacuations are mandatory in this area,” says Andrii Besedin, although he clarifies that Petropavlivka is not part of the Kupiansk district demarcation. But there are neighbors who don’t accept that, who have lost sight of the danger and it’s a dilemma to get them out by force. “We have to talk to them, show them the escape route, where they live and how we can help them. Unfortunately, these people have been there for a long time, they are exhausted and it is not easy to explain to them that it is best to leave,” says the mayor of Kupiansk.
Like María, many residents of the area are dependent on humanitarian aid. In Kupiansk, a group of local residents are queuing next to the fire station at a small cafe that has become a distribution point for the NGO World Central Kitchen (WCK), run by Spanish chef José Andrés. Oleksander, 26, travels every day from the city of Kharkov, around 120 kilometers away, to distribute around 400 rations. “Almost everything is collected by older people,” he emphasizes. Yekaterina, a 40-year-old local worker, hopes the Russians won’t reappear, but she’s not entirely convinced.
Ludmila, a local neighbor who lived there during the Russian occupation, is no longer in her apartment. But among the neighbors waiting their turn to collect food, there is an atmosphere of refusal to evacuate. “If I die somewhere, I’d rather be at home,” says Viktor, 67. “You can’t live here, but we’re not leaving,” Aleksii, 61, sits down next to him.
Volodimir, 51, shows the unhealed wound on his right foot outside his home in Petropavlivka since it was hit by shrapnel in September. Luis de Vega
At the open-air market, Alona, 38, sells clothing and military supplies at her stall. She admits that she has been in the textile business for two decades, but the war has forced her and her husband to adapt. Because of this, they now offer products for soldiers who walk around these streets most often. Both sent their 16-year-old daughter and 18-year-old son to England after the conflict ended. “We are unbreakable,” she says when asked if they want to leave. She forcefully concludes that they will not leave, although their premises were burned down in one of the attacks in the neighborhood near the bridge over the Oskil River. “I hope our army doesn’t leave them behind,” adds Alona.
The low population presence is a good thermometer to measure the temperature of uncertainty despite the irreducible. The city of Kupyansk, which had a population of nearly 30,000 before the Russian invasion last February, is now home to about 5,000 people, while the entire district, which has a population of 57,000, numbers no more than 11,000, according to the mayor. “I’m a patriot. My whole family is from here. Kupyansk is my city. Leave her alone,” Olga pleads with folded hands and tears in her eyes.
Ashtray in Olga’s kitchen Luis de Vega
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits