NOVOSELIVKA, Ukraine – In the small village of Novoselivka in northern Ukraine, the only things that still stand upright and untouched are the flowers.
Daffodils and green shoots surround piles of warped metal and chopped wood where houses once stood. Tulips flutter in the wind amid confused steel and crumbling slag blocks. Cherry blossoms hang from branches pointing down to wide roadside craters.
For about 800 residents who lived in Novoselovka before the war, the new blooms once simply heralded the coming of spring.
Now, for the handful of villagers who remain in the ruined village, they are a reminder of the passing of time, as weeks pass and they are left homeless, wondering where they will go next.
Cherry blossoms herald the arrival of spring amid the devastation in the village of Novoselovka, on the outskirts of Chernigov. Ashley Stewart
Novoselovka bore the brunt of the Russian offensive against Chernigov when the army surrounded the city in the early days of the war in Ukraine. A city of about 300,000 inhabitants, Chernihiv is less than 100 kilometers from both the Russian and Belarusian borders and is the largest city on the road to Kyiv, 130 kilometers to the south.
The siege of Chernigov lasted five weeks before the Russians withdrew in early April, leaving hundreds dead and infrastructure severely damaged.
Only 14 residents remain in Novoselovka, most of whom are elderly.
As we arrive in the village, some of them surround our car, mistakenly believing that we are an auxiliary vehicle.
The villagers are crowded in our car as we approach, assuming we are humanitarian workers. Ashley Stewart
They were left in the village because Russian troops gathered on a nearby hill seven weeks ago, they say, because their younger neighbors fled around them. In the following weeks, the village was destroyed by Russian shelling.
Since then, they have found accommodation with locals in a nearby village while waiting for suitable temporary accommodation and details to rebuild their homes.
While they wait, they return every day to the corpses of their destroyed homes to take care of their gardens. Most people here grow their own vegetables, such as potatoes and carrots.
“I come to the garden to relax and not pay attention to the war,” said Olha Makarenko. The 70-year-old says her hearing was damaged by heavy shelling of the village by the Russian army and she is now almost deaf.
“It’s so difficult. I can’t hear. But what can I do? We have to go through it. ”
During the day, the villagers return to Novoselovka to take care of their gardens and gather in front of one of the only buildings left in the village. Ashley Stewart
Makarenko was born in Chernobyl. She was evacuated to Novoselovka in 1986, after the nuclear accident at the power plant. She asks through tears why the tragedy followed her.
“All my houses have been destroyed in my life.”
During the worst siege, Makarenko and her husband spent 21 days with a friend in their basement, and her house was destroyed. She appeared with the others who stayed in mid-March and moved to a nearby village, where they have since been crammed into locals’ vacant rooms.
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They returned after the liberation of the area in early April and have been returning to their gardens every day since.
When they are not gardening, they gather together in front of one of the only buildings still standing in the village, which they say is now 80 percent destroyed.
“I wanted to be here with my people,” Makarenko said of his decision not to flee the village, adding that many older residents are not mobile and have no choice but to stay.
“I do not know now where we can live or what we can do. We’re just waiting. “
“Planes took off from Belarus”
On the morning of February 24, hundreds of Russian tanks entered Chernihiv on their way to Kyiv. By February 25, a Russian military spokesman announced that they had completed the siege of the strategically important city.
Thus began a five-week siege. The 1st Tank Brigade of the Ukrainian Army was Chernigov’s most important defensive line, repelling Russian offensives for weeks.
As Russian planes attacked military sites with missiles, the city refused to surrender, so civilian infrastructure was increasingly attacked.
Yuri Polyuk, head of the Chernigov forensics bureau, estimates the death toll at about 700, including civilians and soldiers. This does not take into account the number of deaths in the hospital.
The remains of a teddy bear on the streets of Novoselovka.
On the northeastern outskirts of Chernigov, Novoselovka, was the front line of the battle for the city.
“In the first days, a plane came between 4 and 6 in the morning and I left my house to check where it was flying from. He was flying from Belarus. The planes took off from Belarus, dropped bombs on us, turned around and flew back, “said Maria Zamaraeva, whose house was partially destroyed.
“Seven people were killed here. Many were injured. “
Most of the villagers were born in Novoselovka and have lived here all their lives. They say it is a close-knit community where everyone knows each other.
Seeing their village surrounded, the younger villagers fled to neighboring towns or other parts of Ukraine. Those who remained went underground, in the basement of whose home it was considered safest. They say they were not scared then because they believed the battle would end in days. But many end up underground for weeks without seeing the sunlight.
2:13 Civilians evacuated from besieged Mariupol steel Civilians evacuated from besieged Mariupol steel
For some, leaving was not easy due to weakness or disability.
Valentina Tishchenko relies on a cane to help her move and says she can’t get out easily.
She says many of the villagers struggled to make ends meet because Russian soldiers were guiding them when they tried to cook. They survived with whatever rations they had in the house.
“We tried to cook the potatoes on fire, but the Russians were firing from the hills, so we can’t even cook potatoes,” she said.
Zamaraeva says the bombing has driven many who have remained “crazy”. She is watching one of her neighbors “smashed to pieces” by shelling, leaving her traumatized.
“She was in her kitchen cooking. They headed for her house. My house is opposite hers, above the road. And we thought this was our house, “she said.
Tulips among the remains of a house in Novoselovka, on the outskirts of Chernigov. Ashley Stewart
When the soldiers entered the village, she said they were not intimidating but contemptuous. They approached, holding machine guns, and asked, “How come you haven’t died here yet?”
“They looked at my husband’s passport and said, ‘He’s 80, I’m 70, you’re going to die anyway,'” Makarenko said. Due to the damaged hearing caused by the constant shelling, she tilts her head to hear questions and cries softly until she wants them repeated.
Makarenko was in the basement of her friend Mihailo Kirusho when her house was destroyed. She says it burned to the ground in 30 minutes.
“Mihailo came out of his cellar and said, ‘Alder, your house is on fire.’
“I could not even get up. I was so upset. “
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Kirusho says this is not the first time Novoselovka has been destroyed. He says it was destroyed during World War II in 1943.
“People were taken to barns then, and living people were burned. It was the Nazis then, and it turned out that the Russians were repeating the same thing now. But the Russians are even worse than the Nazis, “he said.
“Maybe this place is cursed.”
Russian soldiers settled in the local school and kindergarten in the village, Kirusho said. This part of the village was spared.
Damaged apartment building in Novoselovka. Ashley Stewart
One morning, after weeks of constant shelling, Kirusho says he went outside his basement to smoke. He noticed four soldiers he thought were Ukrainians.
“I said, ‘Hello Cossacks,'” and then I looked and saw that they were Russians. They said, “How are you still here? We have already wiped you off the face of the earth. “
“Then they gave us half an hour to get out of here.”
The rest of the villagers gathered and boarded a trailer, pulled behind a small tractor and fled to the nearby village of Voznesensk, where they were received by residents.
“They rolled back and forth on the graves.”
On March 29, the Russian military announced that it would “drastically reduce military activity” in northern Ukraine, after weeks of halting progress around Kyiv. On April 1, Ukraine announced that Russian forces were withdrawing from the Chernihiv region.
Within days, the Russians disappeared, with traces of destruction and anti-personnel mines.
Ukrainian soldier Oleh Shuloa suffered a lot of damage while fighting in Chernihiv as part of the city’s self-defense unit. Now that the region has been liberated, it is stationed in Novoselovka as part of the National Guard of Ukraine, checking …
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