To be at the side of the Ukrainians to rebuild what has been destroyed by the war, but also, in the immediate future, to help the country to save its vital infrastructures pounded by the Russian army. These are the objectives of two international conferences which will be held this Tuesday, December 13, 2022 in Paris.
The conference ” Solidarity with the Ukrainian people » and the conference « for the resilience and reconstruction of Ukraine will both be opened by French President Emmanuel Macron and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodymyr Zelensky, who will speak by videoconference. What are the needs of Ukrainians? How do they survive in cities, for some, 80% destroyed, sometimes without electricity, without heating, without water?
Ioulia Shukan, specialist in Ukrainian society, lecturer in Slavic studies at the University of Paris-Nanterre, researcher at the Institute of Social Sciences of Politics (ISP/CNRS) and associate at the Center for Russian and Caucasian World Studies and Central European (CERCEC-EHESS/CNRS), has just spent a week in the regions of Kherson, Mykolaiv, Donetsk and Kharkiv, recently liberated by the Ukrainian army.
RFI: How would you describe the daily life of civilians in the areas you visited?
Yulia Shukan: It is an extremely hard daily life, marked by a large number of difficulties. The first is, of course, insecurity, linked to the end of the occupation and a strategy of revenge that the Russian army is developing. This is the case in the city of Kherson, which, once liberated, found itself under the heavy fire from the Russian army.
But the insecurity then comes from the proximity of the front line, as in the regions of Donetsk or Kharkiv, in the east and north-east of the country. The bombardments cause victims almost daily in these cities. This insecurity also punctuates displacements because people are starting to leave the city of Kherson. Displacement has rather stabilized in the Donetsk region and we are seeing a return of populations to the Kharkiv region, with the distance from the front line.
The second problem is the mines. The territories are extremely mined, which obviously limits the possibilities of movement for civilians, agricultural work or quite simply the possibility for people to walk in the forests and go there to collect wood.
Access to water, mobile telephony or mobile internet are very uncertain. It is linked to these regular systematic bombardments by the Russian army on these infrastructures. In many of these towns, as soon as the electricity is restored, it is cut again following the bombardments. However, electricity is necessarily linked to access to water, because electricity is needed to pump water. We sometimes forget, but electricity is also linked to the Internet and mobile telephony and therefore people can find themselves cut off, quite simply from their loved ones and from what is happening in their country for several days.
In this context, what are the most pressing humanitarian needs?
Humanitarian needs are linked in particular to the approach of winter. It is already very cold. When I was in the Donetsk region, at night the temperature went down to -7°C. First of all, there is a need for generators to allow critical infrastructure, but also quite simply civilians to continue to operate in the event of power cuts. There is also all that is wood stove, especially in the apartments where it is possible. In the absence of electricity, this equipment makes it possible to resist the cold.
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There is also a need for building materials, because there is also a movement of return to the liberated villages. These are extremely destroyed, but people still continue to return home. We must therefore help them to better insulate the houses, to seal the holes in the roofs, etc… Food aid also seems necessary to me, the food needs are there too, even if I have the impression that this type of assistance arrives in the territories where the people have greatly exhausted their resources, after the ten months of war.
Nearly twelve million euros in aid have already been paid by more than 40 countries to Ukraine. In your discussions with NGOs, do you feel that this aid is reaching the people who need it?
I have the impression that it reaches the populations, perhaps not always in sufficient quantity and with a certain delay. International humanitarian organizations cannot themselves operate in the areas close to the front line and therefore they are necessarily obliged to subcontract the distribution of this aid to Ukrainian NGOs. These, in turn, rely on volunteers, local initiatives, and therefore manage to redistribute it to citizens who need it. The needs are enormous and this is perhaps also what creates this feeling of inadequacy among the populations, all the more so in winter conditions.
Faced with this war, Ukrainian society is showing a great capacity for resilience. Where does she get these resources ?
This great capacity for adaptation, which commands admiration, is based on a certain number of skills and know-how developed by the Ukrainians. The 1990s, for example, in the Donetsk and Luhansk region, but also elsewhere in Ukraine, were very difficult. Power cuts, lack of heating or lack of financial resources have led people to develop a number of practices: adapting, making reservations. They therefore know how to resist these new conditions, which they experience in the context of war.
It also has a lot to do with the fact that Ukrainians feel their cause is just. They are mobilized to defend their country, they are ready to endure a number of difficulties to resist. In the context of infrastructure bombings, and therefore of regular water and electricity cuts, if on the Russian side we are certain that this is a strategy that will terrorize the populations, the effect produced is the opposite: this strategy is counter-productive in the field because it forces you to adapt. Some buy generators, others lamps or candles to try to hold on and resist.
Finally, there is the element of mobility. People often have the opportunity to leave the city to go to the dacha, the country house, where it is easier to heat themselves at the time of power cuts, if there is a stove. Evacuation services exist, many provided by volunteers, but also by the Ukrainian state.
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