Unlike many of his compatriots, who did not believe that Russia would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Volodymyr Dunai was waiting for her. “There is a clash here between two models: autocracy in Moscow and democracy in kyiv. The Kremlin was not going to agree to be left without Ukraine. We have already seen what happened in Crimea and Donbas and we knew what would happen in other places. The only question was when,” he says from a hotel in the Ukrainian capital. that luck of geopolitical realism, which has ended up proving him right, helped him prepare mentally for what was to come. But she did not want to leave Chernigov before the gale began to roar. He lasted for three weeks hiding in a windowless roomunder constant bombardment and without water, electricity or heating in the entire city.
Chernígov is the other Mariúpol, a northern city of 300,000 inhabitants that has been completely besieged for several weeks. The dead are being buried in mass graves and lpeople dig holes in the street to relieve themselves because the sewage system has been destroyed. “The situation is quite complicated,” says Olha Shelert, the director of the Cherniguiv Magnet School, on the other end of the phone, with such Ukrainian stoicism that she flees from hyperbole and moderates adjectives. “The Russians have destroyed many buildings in the residential areas and have blown up two bridges. We have no connection to the outside world. No exit. Even humanitarian aid is not getting in because they are constantly shelling, especially at night.”
As with Mariupol, it is almost inconceivable that the Russian Army has not yet managed to take Chernigov or enter its urban fabric, which says a lot about the epic Ukrainian resistance. This thousand-year-old city, where Russian is long the lingua franca, it is closer to the Belarusian (70 km) and Russian (140 km) borders than to kyiv (150 km). That is, in the mouth of the wolf. And ten days ago the bridge that connected it with the capital was blown up, also cutting the only road that remained to evacuate civilians and supply the city. “Russia is using one of its standard tactics. If the city refuses to surrender and their troops can’t get in, they just destroy it,” says Dunai, now far from the place where he was born.
“Devastating Destruction”
First they attacked infrastructure and basic services. But almost immediately, the artillery and the aviation punished the residential areas, taking away the regional hospital, the football stadium, four schools or several libraries, according to the sources consulted. “It’s really scary to be there. They attack apartment buildings with missiles and the fighters fly very low. They are also dropping half-ton bombs, which cause devastating destruction, ”says Dunai, 47, pausing his words so as not to break down.
Russia announced this week that it would scale back its military activity over Chernigov to give negotiations a chance. But both local authorities and Western intelligence deny that he complied. The mayor has described the humanitarian situation as “catastrophic” and this Friday he warned that food and medicine could run out in a week. And it is that without electricity and with the accesses sealed, the common pantry has been emptied quickly. “They attacked one of the flour factories for bread and it is very difficult to obtain it. There are also no dairy products and, in the small shops that are still open, there are queues of up to 400 or 500 people waiting outside,” says this computer engineer who fled the city two weeks ago.
“The people who are worse off are those who live on the outskirts. It is really difficult to get there to bring them help, ”says Svitlana Dunai, Volodymyr’s ex-wife, who fled Chernigov a few hours after the start of the invasion to take refuge in a village about 40 kilometers from her home. “I have some friends with three children who have stopped eating to give everything they have to the children. For parents with children and the elderly, it is being a real hell. Some little ones have stopped talking, they are traumatized.”
sending help
Along with other volunteers, Svitlana now spends all her time managing the delivery of aid from other regions and trying to get it into the city. Things like generators, essential for hospitals. They are eking it out with boats crossing the river and “sometimes getting attacked” or driving through muddy, wooded roads. “People are emotionally and physically devastated, but they have joined together and help each other as they can. An example: since there is no gas in almost the entire city, it is cooked with firewood in the portals for all the neighbors, ”says Svitlana, 47, who used to work as a math teacher before the war.
Her ex-husband claims thatthe russian world is showing its true face these days”. And when asked what she expects from the future, she pauses again to contain her emotion. “Chernigov was a beautiful city, but we will rebuild it and it will be even more so,” she says with that self-confidence that Ukrainians show these days.