The Ukrainians keep up the pressure to try to repel the Russians. They continue to progress slowly towards Kherson, the big city in the south, occupied by Moscow since March. In the liberated villages, daily life is gradually resuming its course for inhabitants still haunted by these months of occupation.
With our special correspondents in Vysokopillya, Anastasia Becchio and Boris Vichith,
In front of his house, the wreckage of an old Moskvitch car disfigured by shrapnel and marked with the letter Z daily reminds Irina of memories of the occupation.
“I wish I could tell myself that it was all a bad dream, but I come out of my house and I see it all…”
Irina’s son was injured by drunken soldiers who came to bother a young neighbor. She was also very afraid for her 15-year-old daughter: “ I was out in the street and I see a car marked with a Z, with Russian soldiers of 19-20 years old. They were looking for alcohol. My daughter was there too and they noticed her. But I thank heaven they didn’t see where she came from, because two days later they came to the neighbor’s house saying, we saw a girl, where is she? He replied: she is gone “.
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A few days later, Irina managed to send her daughter out of the occupied zone. In another neighborhood, Viktoria Rogova, a local deputy, also had to hide her 18-year-old daughter.
“They behaved so badly. They were drunk and like drugs. Our daughter stayed hidden most of the time, she didn’t go out: she went from the house to the basement and from the basement to the house and that’s it. “
Still in shock, the villagers try to rebuild themselves. They are impatiently awaiting the return of the electricity they lost with the arrival of the Russians on March 12.
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