Russian soldiers have been accused of looting Ukraine.
Alina Korenyuk saw familiar objects in the mountain of gadgets on a tank.
– The first thing I recognized was the children’s Disney sheets, she says.
The strange picture was taken by a photographer from Reuters in the city of Popasna in the Luhansk region on May 26.
The tank that drives past burnt-out shells of houses is full of gadgets on the tower. A Russian soldier in the crew is half buried behind all things.
The now infamous Z symbol is painted on the sides.
For the Korenyuk family, who fled their home in Popasna on the day of the outbreak of war, the picture became a reminder of the life they had been forced to leave behind.
They took the children’s sheets
The tank’s crew drove around the city with things emptied from the family’s abandoned home. The picture they could geographically place to about five minutes drive from their house.
– My husband sent me a message on What’s App and asked if I saw anything strange. I looked closely at the picture. At first I did not think of the box with the water heater. The first thing I saw was the children’s sheets that we did not have time to use. It was Disney sheets, says Alina Korenyuk, who is in the UK with the children, to Radio Free Europe’s Russian-language site Current Time.
The box contained a water heater that the Korenyuk family bought around New Year’s and had planned to install in connection with the renovation of the kitchen.
– When I looked more closely at the picture, I recognized an old bedspread that we used in the garden and a green tablecloth that was in a cupboard in the kitchen. And there was something inherent in these things, but it was not possible to see what it was. I think it may have been our television and things like that, says Alina Korenyuk.
Fled the same morning
For her, the picture is another slap in the face after being forced to flee both home and homeland.
– Is it not enough that they have destroyed so much? Do they have to steal too? They have stolen every single thing they did not destroy, says Alina Korenyuk.
– It was a pure coincidence that it was my things that were seen in that picture. There were about 15,000 people living in Popasna who are now in about the same situation as I am now. They have no home, no things. Some have it even worse and only own the clothes on the body. At least we had time to bring some things with us, she says to Current Time.
The Korenyuk family decided to flee the Popas the same morning as the Russians crossed the border on 24 February.
– That morning I woke up at 05.30 and then it was full-scale war. I was called to a meeting at work where they explained everything. Then we decided to flee to Kryviy Rih in central Ukraine. We heard gunfire as we drove away. I was driving a car and my husband was in the back of his car, says Alina Korenyuk to Current Time.
– The children asked me to close the windows so that they would not hear the explosions.
Picked up everything
As the Russians withdrew from the advance towards Kyiv and instead concentrated on the eastern parts of the country in the Donbass, numerous testimonies of looting of homes and shops emerged when the owners dared to return.
The soldiers seem to have picked up everything they managed to get with them. It has been about everything from washing machines and guitars to hair dryers and car tires.
The Ukrainian site Mediazona recently published a review which showed that Putin’s soldiers sent 58 tons of stolen goods home to Russia for a few weeks.