This February 24, Ukraine will enter its third year of war. In recent weeks, a series of Russian drone strikes have targeted the country’s second city, Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. Only twenty kilometers from the Russian border, the Saltyvka district is particularly exposed. In the first months of the invasion it suffered heavy damage. Many buildings are in ruins or badly damaged. However, life is gradually returning there, as noted
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With our special envoys, Anastasia Becchio and Boris Vicith
A large, colorful and like-new play area, surrounded by buildings with windows blocked by plywood panels. Sofia, two years old, is having fun under the watchful eye of her father Andrii. She was two months old when the first bombings hit the Saltyvka neighborhood of Kharkiv, in the east of Ukraine. The family who took refuge for a time in western Ukraine, then in Poltava, returned after the liberation from the Kharkiv region, More than a year ago. “ We had exhausted our savings. We are afraid, but what can we do? It continues to bomb. The café that I built 30 years ago is completely destroyed. So, I look after our child, and my wife, a doctor, works. She has set up her practice at home and does cosmetic surgery. Of course, I would like all this to end as quickly as possible, but only victory will be acceptable to us. We can’t just end this war like that “, he explains.
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In Kharkiv, life in Kharkiv is punctuated by air alerts. Darya, 28, walks her three-year-old child. In 24 months, she lost several members of her family and her cousin was kidnapped by the Russians in the occupied zone. “ It’s scary to live here. We would like to be able to live in a peaceful place. But we no longer have much hope that everything will eventually work out and that everything will end quickly », laments Darya.
The Ukrainian woman is still thinking from the neighborhood where she lives if the bombings were to intensify. The tank of the car parked in the courtyard of the building is always full.
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