17/03/2023 – 02h00
For just over a year, images of destruction and death in Ukraine have traveled the world. On social media and in the news, images of soldiers, bombings, attacks, destroyed buildings and dead people are shocking and reveal the most visible side of the war with Russia, which last year invaded the east of the country and came very close to the capital, Kiev.
The traces of war destruction are everywhere. In Kiev, it is common to be corrected when speaking the name of the city. It’s because this is the Russian pronunciation. The Ukrainian pronunciation is Kiyv. After the invasion, a sense of unity in defending the country was strengthened among Ukrainians. And also hatred for the invaders.
On Maidan Square, the main square in Kiyv, thousands of Ukrainian flags planted on the lawn represent those killed in the invasion. Two posters highlight the sentiment of Ukrainians towards the person responsible for the war: “Ukrainians and foreigners killed by Putin”.
Amidst the little flags, there are photos of soldiers who lost their lives in combat.
But there is a less visible side, which is the impact on the lives of ordinary people who have to move on in the midst of war.
It’s hard to imagine being suddenly forced to leave your home with only a few clothes and documents with a direct message: leave and go far away, otherwise you and your family members will be killed. Having to leave behind your life, your work, friends, relatives, your history in order not to die.
That’s what happened to Anatolii Yakovenko, 38, an engineering technician who, 10 months ago, left Mariupol with his 4-year-old daughter Masha. Mariupol is in eastern Ukraine and was one of the first targets of the Russians, who violently attacked the city.
Anatolii now lives with his daughter in a small room in a container in the city of Lviv, which is about 1,300 km from Mariupol, in western Ukraine, almost on the border with Poland.
The container is a project in partnership with the Polish government and works as temporary housing for Ukrainians who were forced to move far away from where they spent their entire lives. With no friends, relatives, housing or jobs, they have to start over from scratch.
With a distant, sad look, he regrets having been forced to leave the city where he was born: “I worked, I had a house with a garden. But it was all destroyed.” He says he has no plans to return. “There was no way to stay. The risk for me and my daughter was too great, ”he reveals.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 5.3 million Ukrainians have lost their homes since the start of the war and have had to relocate. The situation in the east is more serious with a record of 2 million people who had to leave everything behind to survive. They are men, women, youth, children, seniors.
Even after losing everything and still having to move cities, many Ukrainians try to maintain old everyday habits. When we arrived at the refugee containers in Lviv, it was a cold and rainy Sunday.
We found Victoria Lavrentieva, 51, preparing a mayonnaise salad like many Brazilian families usually prepare for Sunday lunch.
Only she was in a communal kitchen, surrounded by strangers, with no privacy. It felt like a way to connect with a recent past. With slow movements, she neatly arranged the plate.
Victoria moved with her 19-year-old daughter Maria from Sloviansk to western Ukraine, a journey of almost 700 km. She says that she used to prepare this dish every Sunday and decided to continue even after being forced to leave her and her family’s entire life behind.
“I worked as a shop assistant. I still haven’t got a job. I cannot understand why the Russians did this to us, ”she laments.
Maria is more optimistic. Although she felt distance from her friends, many of whom left Ukraine with their families, she keeps in touch on social media and hopes for better days to come. “I got a place at college. One hour this will all have to end ”, she believes.
The Russians just barely invaded Kiyv last year. Several cities around the Ukrainian capital still keep records of the destruction caused by the invaders.
In Irpin, a city 30 km from Kiyv, images of destroyed buildings, burned houses and cars pierced by bullets are common.
We met Yosyp, a friendly 80-year-old man, who was sweeping the sidewalk at home. The neighboring property was destroyed, burned. He said that with the proximity of Russian troops, he left for the west, where he had relatives.
“When I returned, I learned that the neighbor’s house had been hit by a missile. Luckily, he wasn’t. He lost everything and had to move”, he laments. Yosyp says he is afraid of further attacks. “We are afraid, of course, but it is my home, where I live and feel good. I will not leave. This is what they want, ”he comments.
For Yosyp, the Ukrainians will win the war. “We’ve been through a lot and overcame it. We’ll get through this too. Russians always said they were brothers to Ukrainians. But which brothers invade your house, throw a bomb in it and kill people?”, he asks.
The bridge separating Irpin from Kiyv has not yet been rebuilt. The image of concrete and twisted metal is impressive. A missile hit the structure last year.
In another city neighboring the Ukrainian capital, Bucha, which is 30 km away, the reconstruction effort is individual. We passed through a street in which all the houses had been damaged. Some were being rebuilt.
Viktor was working on the house when we arrived. He shows pieces of the treadmill of a Russian war tank that was left in his backyard. “It was a small garden. The tank entered here and destroyed everything in my backyard and that of my neighbors. They aimed at the houses and shot,” he laments.
He says he had nowhere to go and hid in the basement of the house. In Ukraine, because of the intense cold, it is common for houses to have basements to store groceries. The cameras in Viktor’s house recorded the tanks passing in the street. After a week in the basement, he was captured along with other neighbors.
“They put a gun next to my head and kept shooting. They did psychological terrorism. I thought I was going to die,” he says.
Bucha was one of the cities that suffered most from the Russian invasion in March 2022. The invaders withdrew in April, when Ukrainian authorities said they found about 500 murdered residents. They also collected reports of torture, rape and sexual abuse allegedly carried out by Russian soldiers.
On the way to the small town of Makariv, 70 km from Kiyv, little red flags stuck in the ground that borders the road attract attention. They are warnings that the land is mined. Before leaving, the Russians laid mines to prevent farmers from growing any food in that area.
This severely affected the region’s economy. But it wasn’t just farmers who were out of work.
Yurii lives in a neighborhood near the center of Makariv. Desolate, he shows what’s left of the small sawmill he kept in front of the house where he lives with his wife and two dogs. He made frames, gates and railings before the war.
During the Russian attacks, a bomb landed on the site and reduced everything to twisted metal, burned walls and rubble. The roof no longer exists. The image is impressive. And the locksmith cries when he looks at what’s left of his workplace.
“I still haven’t had the money to rebuild. I couldn’t find a job and I live on government assistance. I’m not satisfied. I don’t know why they did it. It was a lifetime’s work destroyed in a few minutes. The bomb fell at night and we almost died, ”he explains.
Literature teacher Oksana Dvorakivska went with her daughter to her mother’s house, Marchuk Valentyna Mykolaivna, 75, in Makariv, when the Russians bombed Kiyv, where she lives, in 2022. She thought she would be safer there, but at the arriving, he found Russian troops attacking the city.
The house has a small front garden. It’s on a quiet street not far from the center of Makariv.
“We stayed 10 days in the basement. Me, my mother and my little daughter. The noise of shots, bombs, tanks passing in the street was frightening. It was very cold. Lighting at night was provided by candles. My daughter still has nightmares, thinking she is going to die, ”reports Oksana.
Shy, Oksana’s mother offered us some tea. She said she had already gone through difficult times throughout her life, but nothing compared to what happened last year. “We just want to live in peace. I hope it’s over soon.”
Oksana says that her daughter’s classes have resumed, but students, parents and teachers live with fear and almost daily sirens that warn of the possibility of missile or drone attacks.
Living with the war was the way Ukrainians found to try to live their lives. In hotels, there are signs indicating the shelter in case of attack. The football championship was resumed, but when the siren sounds, the game is stopped and the athletes go to the shelter. And for those in the city, it is common to receive bombing alerts on their cell phones.
For someone wounded in combat, starting over is not easy. There are no official numbers of dead and wounded in the war. In Ukraine, men under the age of 60 cannot leave the country without authorization. They can be summoned to fight at any time. That was the case of lawyer Konstantin, 59 years old, father of two children and grandfather of two grandchildren.
We meet Konstantin at a rehabilitation center for military personnel wounded in the war. He was undergoing physical therapy to recover from being shot in the back and legs during a battle against the Russians in the east.
He says that he had an office in Kiyv and that he worked in the civil area, but he was drafted into the war. He was at the front as a sergeant. With difficulty walking and sitting, Konstantin had a pained expression when he talked to us.
“If I can, I will go back to the battlefield. We are fighting for our land, for our family. Wouldn’t you fight if your house was invaded?
32-year-old senior sergeant Volodymyr was shot in the head. The scar is visible. He says the doctors thought he would not survive. “I saw many colleagues die beside me. It was horrible. Now it’s about pushing myself to recover, ”he explains.
There are stories of compassion. Yurash Sviatoslav, 28, is Ukraine’s youngest deputy. He chairs the Brazil-Ukraine Commission at the Ukrainian Congress. Sviatoslav says he intends to go to Brazil when the war is over. He wants to get to know the community of Ukrainian descendants in Paraná.
The young parliamentarian spent a year at the front. He says he went voluntarily. He saw death and destruction. In one of the cities, he found a Weimaraner dog that was wandering the streets, lost. “His owner was killed by the Russians. If he stayed there, he would die, so I decided to bring him with me, ”says Sviatoslav.
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