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1 of 4Photo: Nariman El-Mofty / AP / TT
As fighting intensifies in eastern Ukraine, civilians are being urged to flee to safer areas. But some people neither can nor want to leave. One of them is the 70-year-old pensioner Valery Ilchenko, who intends to stay in his hometown, bent over his crossword puzzle.
The streets are eerily deserted in the town of Kramatorsk. Most shops have closed again and the restaurants are closed in the once lively city. The traces of an attack – a dead body under a sheet, burnt out car wrecks and a crater-deep hole in the ground – further testify to the mood of doom.
Many of the 150,000 inhabitants have left. But in the shadow of a tree, the pensioner Valery Ilchenko sits and continues to solve crossword puzzles, a task he performs on a daily basis and which, in the midst of a burning war, gives him a moment of entertainment and a fixed point in life.
– I have nowhere to go and I have no desire to leave either, says the widower to the news agency AP who spoke to people in the city.
And in the one-room apartment where Valery Ilchenko lives, he can at least sit down on his sofa and watch TV, he states.
“This is our country”
As Russia intensifies its attacks on strategically important cities in eastern Ukraine, such as Kramatorsk and Slovyansk in Donetsk province, provincial governor Pavlo Kyrylenko has urged residents to seek refuge elsewhere. Fewer civilians in the area would also make it easier for the Ukrainian army.
– With fewer people in place, we can concentrate more on our enemy, says Kyrylenko and adds that the shelling has increased and that the situation is “very chaotic”.
But many, like Valery Ilychenko, who does not consider himself able to afford or have the opportunity to leave Kramatorsk, intend to stay. In the dazzling sunshine, 85-year-old Maria Savon stands in a food queue, giving her view on the matter.
– Why would I leave? Where you were once born, you must also die. This is our country, she says.
Suspicions of the West
At the same time, Maria Savon is suspicious of the West. She wants President Volodymyr Zelensky to cut ties with both Europe and US President Joe Biden and instead ensure a ceasefire with Russia.
Others worry that they will not be welcome in western Ukraine, that their compatriots dislike residents of eastern Ukraine where a predominant part of the population is Russian-speaking. There is a fear that Ukrainians in other parts of the country see them as complicit in the war.
The mayor of Slovyansk, however, has given clear signals that they are ready to receive the fugitives with open arms, and that there is a readiness to provide them with food and shelter.
Feel alone
Valery Ilchenko continues with his crossword puzzle, but from time to time his anger flares up. He, who once served in the Soviet army, feels an enormous anger towards the Russians living in the country and wants them to be “deported immediately.”
So suddenly his mood changes again and he says sadly that at certain moments, left alone in his small apartment in the spooky city, he can experience a great deal of loneliness.
– When sadness strikes, it feels no further. But then there are also other moments, when it feels ok, he says.
He has nothing bad to say about those who leave.
– Let them leave the city. It’s better than being bombed. I just hope they know where they’re going. What if it’s the same thing there as here with us? You can try to escape from the bombs. But bombs are bombs, they can hit anywhere.
Facts
Russian advances in the Donbass
In the coming week, Russia is expected to take control of several smaller towns in the Donbass in the east, according to an analysis from the British Ministry of Defense. Two such places are said to be Siversk and Dolyna, which are located on the road to the more fortified cities of Slovyansk and Kramatorsk.
The area commonly known as the Donbass consists of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions of eastern Ukraine.
In connection with Russia annexing Ukrainian Crimean peninsula in violation of international law in 2014, Russian-backed separatists with close ties to Moscow declared so-called People’s Republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. Fighting between the Russian-backed forces and the Ukrainian military continued, killing more than 14,000 people.
Just days before Russia’s major invasion of Ukraine on February 24 this year, Russia recognized Donetsk and Luhansk as independent republics and announced a “special military operation” with the alleged aim of protecting Russians in the enclaves.
After failing to occupy Kyiv during the first phase of the war, Russia’s war was concentrated from mid-April on the Donbass and nearby regions in the southeast. Through brutal Russian warfare, Russia now occupies large parts of eastern and southeastern Ukraine.
Sources: Nationalencyklopedin, Landguiden / UI and more.
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