Joy, fear and grief: After six months of Russian occupation, the residents of Ukraine began to return to their homes thanks to the counterattack that led to the reoccupation of territories, one of them is Natalya Yalstertova who told the Reuters news agency about returning to her hometown of Kilia with her husband. “We are going home, my mood is great, we are so happy now,” she said.
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The town, which had a population of 27,000 citizens before the war, is one of the cities that Ukraine recaptured in northeastern Kharkiv, after the sudden collapse of one of Moscow’s main front lines. “We haven’t been home for five months. I really want to see what’s there and what’s happened,” Yalstertova shared.
To return home, Natalya traveled 80 km with her husband and daughter on one of the special trains operated for residents of the town who wish to return. Driver Maxim Kharchenko said that the train on the Kharkiv-Balkaliya route used to link Kyiv airport with the city center, but because of the war it stopped All air traffic could be redeployed to Kharkiv.
“The train was launched on September 14. And already on the first train there were people traveling back and forth to Balaklia,” he said. “They went there to see what happened to their houses, to check if they were destroyed or not.”
When they arrived in their hometown, Natalia and her family walked through the battle-torn town to their apartment and discovered that it had been lightly damaged by shelling. “It’s like we’re in Chernobyl,” said her daughter, Olena Miroshenchenko. “No one did anything, for six months no one cut the grass and bushes. Everything is overgrown.”
“It’s very scary,” Olana added, “I still have this feeling that at any moment a shell could explode or a plane could fly overhead. I’m still afraid to be here.”