Nadia Bondarchuk walks lightly. House slippers scratch the pebbles on the path that leads to her home. That sound sounds sweet against the constant explosions and gunfire in the background. This 75-year-old woman has already got used to it and does not pay attention to them. The same does not happen with Chery, Chip, Chervuka and Hamlet, their three dogs and her cat, who do not get used to the noise of the fighting. Only Nadia and her neighbor Iván resist in the Berkovets neighborhood of kyiv, northwest of the capital and at the gates of Bucha and Hostomel, two of the places in the hands of Russia. It is the first line of defense for the Ukrainian troops and therefore the first point through which the Russians could enter.
The war has been going on for a month and the authorities assure that in the last few hours the enemy troops have not only not advanced towards kyiv, but have managed to push them back from Moshcun or Makariv, which, according to the official media, would once again be in the hands of Ukraine. To this should be added that, in the words of the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, “Irpín is already practically under our control.” The former boxer pointed to Brovary, northeast of the capital, as “the next big battle to push the enemy away.” Both of them know the symbolism of kyiv and that is why the Ukrainians defend it by all possible means.
So, with the Ukrainian war report in hand, the noises that break with the bucolic image of Nadia’s dacha “come from their own fire.” “They are ours,” says this woman who now dedicates her life to helping soldiers and militiamen. Or maybe not, because Russia used Grad rockets against the capital for the first time, hitting several buildings near the center.
Thousands of civilians like her who support soldiers and militiamen make up the citizen resistance against the Russian invasion
The chickens peck in the garden of the house, occupied by three stalls where military clothing hangs. “The boys come every day in the morning, after spending the night fighting in the forest, and they leave dirty clothes for me to wash. Some also eat something for breakfast or take a shower. They arrive exhausted. I take care of cleaning the clothes, I hang them in the sun and in the afternoon they come to pick them up,” says Nadia, who says she is not afraid because “I don’t mind dying today or tomorrow. So I stay and at least try to be useful to my country in something.
An army of civilians
In addition to regular soldiers and volunteers from the Territorial Defense units, an army of civilians covers the Ukrainian soldiers. There are restaurants that, even if they are closed to the public, keep their kitchens running to send rations to the front, and in the few open cafeterias all drinks are free for them and people like Nadia collaborate in this war with what they can: a washing machine, a shower and always hot tea.
The exchange of fire is intense. Nadia is not disturbed and she assures that it is worse during the day than at night. She, at least, gets to sleep. In the living room of the house she has a photo of her native Crimea, under Russian control since 2014, and the television connected 24 hours a day to be informed and accompanied. It doesn’t take long for her mobile phone to ring and from a nearby checkpoint they ask her about the identity of the visitor she has just received. She reports that they are journalists and in a few minutes five soldiers show up to check the reporters’ credentials. It is a sensitive area. Asked how things are going at the front, the answer of one of them is “fifty, fifty.” Nothing more.
Nadia follows her own. Socks, pants, t-shirts, jackets… When the clothes are dry, she puts them in plastic bags and leaves them at the door. She doesn’t have a gun in her hand, but she doesn’t need one. Wars have many fronts and Vladimir Putin has managed to activate a society dedicated to the defense of his country. Millions of Ukrainians have left their homes to escape the war, but those who remain, like Nadia, do so to fight and make it possible for their countrymen to return as soon as possible.