“These bastards knew they were hitting civilians,” accuses the director of the Nova Pochta center hit by a rocket
Fur-lined shoes, child seat, generator, blankets, stroller, garden hose, down jacket… In the middle of creaking scrap metal and between two puddles of blood lie hundreds of torn packages. The S-300 rocket that fell on Saturday evening in a suburb of Kharkiv, the largest regional center of Nova Pochta (“New Post”, private postal and courier company), killed six of the 33 employees working there. Sixteen injured people are in hospital, eight of them are in serious condition, two bodies could not be identified. Hanging at the farm gate, a woman cries in front of Nova Pochta’s truck, which has been torn to pieces.
Nova Pochta, a private company founded in 2001 to compete with traditional public postal services, was already an institution before the war. Since February 24, 2022, when travel to dangerous areas is rare and there are many moves, the success has been enormous. Thanks to 10,000 official points and 13,000 QR code lockers, Nova Pochta delivers overnight to every corner of the country and, since the Russian invasion, to Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Moldova… A European flag flies at the entrance to the depot. next to the Ukrainian flag.
Since the Donbass war, humanitarian packages have also been delivered free of charge by the company’s 32,000 employees, known for working late into the night seven days a week, like this Saturday when a rocket hit the Donbass depot. Kharkiv, at 10:20 a.m. In 2022, a minor attack had already left one dead and six injured. “At night you can see Russia from the roof. Belgorod is just over the hill. In 45 seconds of flight, the alarm doesn’t even have time to go off,” explains the director of the regional center, Dmytro Zavada, with a sad face. He started there as a warehouse clerk and knew every employee.
“Those bastards knew they were beating civilians. They also attack something symbolic. Our packages are often the only way for families to communicate with each other. We even delivered to Vovchansk [nord-est de Kharkiv], 2 kilometers from the Russian border, with a rubber boat. Nova Pochta is the first to be restored in the liberated villages, with electricity and 4G. For Ukrainians it is everyday life, but also sentimental: when winter or Christmas approaches, a mother knows that her son will receive his package the next day. »
Ariane Chemin