Nowhere are so many bombs currently falling as on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. Russian soldiers want to conquer the industrial and university city in eastern Ukraine – but so far they have been unsuccessful.
“Planes are constantly flying, bombs are constantly falling, shots are fired at houses. We have dead civilians. It’s just terrible,” Mayor Igor Terekhov describes Putin’s war of aggression in the city of 1.5 million souls on BILD Live. Plain text: constant shelling – but the citizens hold out!
Ordinary citizens would seek shelter from Russian bombs in basements and subway stations. According to Techerow, the attackers were not only targeting residential buildings, but also the vital infrastructure, such as power distributors, gas and water pipes.
With the exception of a few power failures, everything is still working: “We are able to repair everything quickly. All lines, water pipes and also the heat supplies are restarted again and again. Because it’s still very cold and we know that we can’t leave the city without a heat supply,” said the mayor.
Because: In Kharkiv there is the deepest, freezing cold winter. At night, the temperatures drop to minus 13 degrees, during the day the thermometers hardly jump above zero. People need warmth in their homes.
The mayor of the frontline city continued: The announced humanitarian corridors for civilians to leave the city unharmed do not exist in reality.
His words of warning to the whole world: “This is genocide against the Ukrainian people and against Kharkiv.”
Photo: Uncredited/dpa
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Foto: action press
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BUT: Despite constant shelling, nobody in Kharkiv is thinking of giving up!
Citizens volunteered in droves to fight. “They got guns. And with these weapons in their hands, they are defending the city,” says Techerow. The army fights “heroically”. All Russian attempts to enter the city were prevented.
What encourages the mayor: “What I see in people is the desire to win. Because we didn’t attack anyone, the enemy came to us, to our city, to our country, to Ukraine.”
► His message to the Russian attackers: “Kharkiv is united and we will hold out – until we win.” Kharkiv is a peaceful, cosmopolitan and modern European city.
Foto: picture alliance/dpa
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