2023-07-15 10:18:48
Over the past months, the Ukrainian army has liberated a number of regions in the east of the country, and despite the departure of the Russian forces, there are Ukrainian villages that were on the front line suffering until now, in light of the spread of mines and the displacement of most of the population.
The New York Times highlighted three of these “forgotten” villages in eastern Ukraine, which are now threatened with disappearance, and interviewed residents who talked about what life is like amidst the destruction and lack of basic means of life.
The report stated that the villages of Solivka, Vernopilya, and Kamyanka, which are located in the city of Izyum in Kharkiv Province, are in danger of being lost, not because of ongoing battles or being targeted by Russian shells, but rather because of mines and the growth of wild weeds in villages that were important in agriculture in eastern Ukraine.
The newspaper spoke with two residents of Solivka, a woman who works to save Vernopilia from disappearance, and another woman from Kamianka who accuses her neighbor of treason and collaborating with the Russian forces.
Victor Caliberda (62 years old) and Anatoly Solovey (52 years old) were just acquaintances before the Russian invasion, and with the outbreak of confrontations, their village became part of the battles and hundreds of times passed through the forces by the soldiers, and according to the report, this was the situation 80 years ago when the leader’s army passed Nazi Hitler in the village on his way to Moscow.
The village was destroyed during the Russian occupation last year, including the homes of the two men, Caliberda and Solovey.
And the Ukrainian forces liberated the village last September, as part of efforts to restore the city of Izium, which President Volodymyr Zelensky visited after its liberation as a city of strategic importance in the Kharkiv region.
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The two men returned to the village after its liberation, but only the two of them live there permanently, as there is no electricity or gas. “I am used to surviving on my own,” Caliberda said. “We need everything here, because there is nothing left.”
The duo lives on the food that comes to them from volunteers, and Solovey seeks to re-cultivate his land with wheat and corn again, after he removed the mines himself.
In the neighboring village, Vernopilia, lives Nina Zagreblina, 67, who has been in charge of the village administration since the 1990s. Currently, only about 120 people live in Vernopilia, after it had 654 people.
Unlike the neighboring village, which is only 5 miles away, Russian forces never attempted to occupy Vernopilia, but it was destroyed by bombing as it happened during World War II, according to the newspaper.
There is no electricity in the village, and the spread of mines next to the power lines slows its return. In addition, humanitarian aid does not reach the village sufficiently, and there are few building materials.
The third village, Kamianka, had very few residents left during the Russian occupation, and one of them bears the name “Vasil”.
The New York Times report stated that Vasil lost his leg due to a mine explosion after the Russian forces left the village, but this did not prevent him from being accused of treason.
Svetlana Spornyak, 60, said of Vasyl who was close to the Russians and now, “He moves everywhere and no one will judge him… He used to live with them.”
Spornyak’s house was destroyed by the battles, and the Russians occupied the village for about six months and its population was more than a thousand people, but currently there are only about 80 people living without electricity and in the midst of landmines, and they believe that the Ukrainian government has forgotten them.
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Ukraine is currently engaged in a counterattack with the aim of regaining the lands occupied by Russia, after more than 500 days have passed since the outbreak of the war.
Recently, it received cluster bombs from the United States, and pledged to use them only to disperse gatherings of Russian soldiers and against military targets.
A spokesman for the Tavria military region in southern Ukraine, Valeriy Chershin, confirmed on Thursday that the ammunition arrived a week after the United States announced its intention to send it as part of an $800 million security aid package.
Ukrainian officials say the deployment of cluster munitions is justified in light of Russia’s mining of large swathes of captured territory.
Kiev focused on recovering groups of villages in the southeast and restoring the areas around the city of Bakhmut in the east of the country, which Russian forces captured last May, after months of fighting.
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