A strong wind is blowing over Marganets in southern Ukraine. It comes from the Dnipro river, from the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant occupied by Russian troops, where kyiv and Moscow accuse each other of bombardments. Marganets is only thirteen kilometers away, on the other side of the river. The leafy hilltop town remains under Ukrainian control but between the thickets you can see the Soviet-era station.
“You know, if we die, it will happen in a second, we won’t suffer,” wants to believe Anastasia, 30. “It calms me to know that my child and my family will not suffer,” she continues, bravado, continuing her shopping. The center of this industrial city, which had 50,000 inhabitants before the war, is lively and seems to contradict the alarmist rumors circulating about the state of the plant’s six reactors.
“I fear for my parents, for myself. I want to live and enjoy life,” says Ksenia, 18, while serving customers from a coffee kiosk along the main commercial thoroughfare. “We are constantly afraid. And the information says that the situation in the plant is very tense, so it is getting more terrible every second.”