REPORTAGE – In this city in the Kharkiv region, relatively spared from the fighting, the scars of war are in people’s minds.
Special envoy to Lobanivka
Shell impacts puncture the road. Ruins and stray dogs multiply. In the Kharkiv region, less than 10 km before the Russian border, the artillery resounds louder, more frequently, and some Grad rockets explode: Russia is not seen, it is heard. A tiny road can suddenly be seen, coming out of the massacred artery which previously led straight to Moscow. At the end, a small village appears: Lobanivka. Except for a few shrapnel impacts, the facades of the houses seem intact. In the geography of the Russian occupation, Lobanivka is neither the bunker town where the Russians lived – and where abuses generally take place – nor the front town destroyed by the fighting. Here, the stigmata are elsewhere.
“The Russians mainly persecuted us morally!”, exclaims Zina. The old woman is sitting on a stool in her garden. The rain falls on her face, she remains stoic, suddenly silent. Her husband continues for her: “The soldiers…
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