“No mother should watch her daughter die. No mother should collect her daughter’s body. They killed her, they broke my heart, they broke the hearts of our family. “
Vera Ivanova is inconsolable in her grief.
Her daughter Natalia was killed in a bombing in Severodonetsk, one of two cities, along with Lisichansk, that the Russians are trying to take to complete the takeover of the Luhansk region in fierce battles in eastern Ukraine.
After failing to take Kyiv or Kharkov, the focus of Vladimir Putin’s forces is now on the eastern part of the country. And they succeeded there, as Ukrainian forces were outnumbered and repulsed, despite fierce resistance.
Natalia Ivanova was with her family at the extensive Azot chemical plant, which has become a refuge for hundreds of people in a city facing months of rocket and air strikes and artillery shelling. Death and destruction are enormous in scale. More than 1,600 people have died in the fighting, and only 2,000 remain in the devastated city of the pre-war population of 110,000.
The intensity of the attack on Severodonetsk and Lisichansk has increased after Russian forces suffered heavy losses during an unsuccessful attempt to cross the Seversky Donets River earlier this month. There now seems to be malice in targeting civilian areas.
73-year-old Vera Ivanova, whose daughter Natalia was killed in a Russian shelling, with her grieving grandchildren twins Maxim and Alexander, 14, and son-in-law Vladislav
(Ivan Harinyak)
About 80 percent of the city’s buildings have been hit, and in some neighborhoods there are almost none left. Residents have largely retreated underground, rarely going outside except occasionally for communal meals.
Natalia was killed along with three others gathered in front of the factory to cook and eat in the afternoon. The attack was scheduled, survivors say, to inflict maximum casualties.
“They took away his wife and mother,” said a 73-year-old crying Vera. “Look at the boys, look at her husband. We all suffer.
“We can’t even stay for her funeral, we have to go, the church will bury her. All this suffering because of a madman and all those people who follow him. “
Natalia’s 14-year-old twin sons, Maxim and Alexander, are sitting on the ground, hugging each other. Her husband Vladislav Golovin stands next to them and looks ahead.
After a moment he shakes his head. “She was a good woman, my wife. I miss her. I don’t know why we were bombed. They say someone led them, but why would anyone do that? His voice trailed off.
Police have arrested a man accused of contact with the enemy before the attack. He allegedly informed the Russians about gathering people in the open: the bombing began a little later.
“We have enough evidence to show that his man was in contact with the Russians,” said Pavel Landik, the investigating officer. “There are others involved; we will catch them.
“They bombed this place when there were a lot of people outside. It was not a military target; the idea must have been to create panic among the people, to create terror. “
Hole in the ground where a Russian missile struck near an apartment building in Luhansk, eastern Ukraine
(Kim Sengupta)
Nikola Ivanov also died in the air strike. Her husband Nikola received severe leg injuries. He was evacuated. Their son Sergei is trying to find where he was taken.
“My father had to be moved very quickly and he has no documents with him,” says Sergei. “I have to find him. He was ill before his injuries and I am very worried about him; he may be unconscious somewhere in a hospital. “
Sergei is a great man. A former professional boxer, he was a sparring partner of Vitali Klitschko, a former world heavyweight champion, now in the spotlight as a wartime mayor of Kyiv.
Sergei says Klitschko wanted to watch him before his fight with Lennox Lewis for the undisputed world title – “Battle of the Titans” in Los Angeles in 2003. Lewis won by technical knockout when the match was stopped in the sixth round due to heavy cuts over Klitschko’s left eye.
“Vitali was worried about Lennox Lewis and asked me to train with him because I had that style,” he recalls. “Who knows, maybe he would have won if the battle had continued. Anyway, he’s been a very good mayor ever since. ”
He thinks: “I’ve been boxing since I was little. I have always felt that I can always take care of myself, my family. But now, with what happened to my mother and father, I feel helpless.
Former boxer Sergei Ivanov is looking for his father after a Russian air strike that killed his mother
(Ivan Harinyak)
Severodonetsk and Lisichansk are under constant fire, making them extremely difficult to reach, and routes through fields and villages are needed to avoid tank battles on major roads.
One of the two bridges over the Seversky Donets River to Severodonetsk was destroyed, the other is under constant fire. Residents and Ukrainian forces in the city face almost constant artillery fire. Electricity and water have been cut off for more than a month.
The question for Ukraine’s political and military leadership is whether the forces should be withdrawn and civilians evacuated. On Friday, the region’s governor, Sergei Haidai, said a tactical withdrawal could be needed. President Vladimir Zelensky is said to be considering options.
Of the two cities, Severodonetsk is in more immediate danger, facing a very real risk of being surrounded and besieged, as happened in Mariupol. What happened there provoked the anger of the soldiers who defended it, until they were finally forced to surrender to Russian forces.
Nikolai, an infantry sergeant, sees danger looming. “We do not want a repeat, we do not want the nitrogen plant in Severodonetsk to become the new Azovstal plant in Mariupol,” he said. “But in the end, this is a political decision, we will continue with what we do.”
Mariana Bezuhla, an MP, is in Lisichansk to monitor the conditions on the front lines as a member of the parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence. She declined to say whether Severodonetsk could become another Mariupol, but wanted to stress the need for Western countries to speed up the supply of weapons needed to counter the Russian offensive.
Mariana Bezukhla, a Ukrainian MP, speaks in Lisichansk
(Kim Sengupta)
Ms. Bezuhla, wearing a bulletproof vest (while we are constantly talking about incoming shelling), added: “The issue of evacuation has been raised, but this is not something I can say anything about now.
“In order to continue to defend Ukrainian territory, we need our allies to give us the weapons our soldiers need. We also need more ammunition; our soldiers must limit retaliatory fire due to lack of supplies.
“What is happening in Donbass will obviously affect what is happening in Ukraine, so it is essential that we get these supplies. I saw what our forces are facing, and also what the people in these areas are facing. I want to thank the emergency services for everything they do for the people here.
The police have become the most important emergency service on the front lines of Severodonetsk and Lisichansk. They are helping to deliver food and water, evacuate civilians and wounded soldiers, and transport the growing death toll to morgues and cemeteries.
A quarter of a mile from where Mrs. Bezuhla was speaking, a food distribution center was hit by a rocket and police rushed from their station with sandbags.
A huge hole has been drilled in the wall of the former concert hall. A car used to deliver food was left charred by fire.
Some of those inside were waiting for deliveries, while others were evacuated.
Breaking his way through the rubble, 69-year-old Alexander Voychevky is adamant that he and his wife will not leave. As the explosions continue nearby, he admits the situation is dangerous, “but this is our home, we have nowhere else to go, we will stay and see what happens.”
Inside the damaged building, Nadyazd Samokhrin also insists it will remain in Lisichansk. “I have elderly parents, both 77, they can’t travel and I won’t leave them,” she explains. Anyway, this is part of Ukraine, and I do not want to leave part of my own country, driven out by the Russians.
One of the two bridges over the Seversky Donets River to Severodonetsk was destroyed
(Kim Sengupta)
Not everyone agrees. A group of mostly women gather to protest angrily. “The Ukrainians themselves are bombing, it is a lie that they are the Russians,” shouted one of them. “This is NATO, the Americans, the British, they are killing us,” shouted another.
Ms. Samokhrin tried to object, but left after being hit. “These people are angry and scared. “They believe in propaganda and rumors, there is no point in trying to have a discussion with them,” she said. “You see what the Russians are doing with this supposedly liberating city.
A rocket with outstretched fins is built into the pavement near the distribution center. Then another hit an apartment building, digging a massive bunker.
Elena Kovalova, Tatiana Salopan and Raisa Bogachov, all in their 60s, are sitting on a bench watching a family cut down a fuel tree.
“We have nothing, no gas, no electricity, no water, no money,” Ms Kovalova said. “My husband’s heart condition has worsened since the bombing. We are on the eighth floor, there are no elevators and he cannot go up and down the stairs. So he’s been stuck there for months. Now we just live day by day, hoping to survive. ”
Ms. Salopan’s hearing was damaged by the rocket attack on the buildings. “The good thing is that the bombs don’t sound that loud right now,” she said.
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