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CHERNIGOV, Ukraine.– “My family is well now, I study, work, volunteer and help with fundraising for the Army. But it’s scary not knowing what will happen in three minutes. You live here and now because there is no other option,” Ukrainian Dariia Nevidomaya, 19, who lives in Chernigov, a historic city in the north of the country just 90 kilometers from the border with Russia and 140 from kyivsurrounded at the start of the large-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.
“I just want this nightmare to end,” adds the young woman, who is studying journalism remotely at the Tax University of Irpin, on the outskirts of the capital, where she planned to move. But The war changed their plans completely.
Although a snapshot of Chernigov – characterized by its monuments, ancient churches and leafy parks – on a sunny spring day gives the impression of a peaceful city, The tension is very latent: the constant attacks on towns along the 225 kilometers of border that the region shares with Russia keep the Ukrainian Army on high alert with defensive actions.
“The bombings are in progress all along the border, every day. About 50,000 people live there who are in constant threat of attack,” warns Vyacheslav Chaus, governor of the Chernigov region, to a group of journalists from South American media, including the nation. “The intensity of the attacks is very high. The Russians use all types of weapons: heavy artillery, mortars, planes, missiles and drones,” he describes.
As part of its strategy, Russia infiltrates small groups of between eight and ten people through that area, for reconnaissance and attacks on civilian targets and infrastructure, although lately without much success. “They also do it to avoid the transfer of our units to other threatening areas on the battle front,” says Chaus.
According to the Ukrainian Army, Moscow is taking measures aimed at expanding its military units on the border with Chernigov –where some 944,000 people live, fewer than before the aggression– and the rest of the border with the Sumy region, which continues to the east. In return, to avoid another invasion, kyiv forces increased troops and mining, and fortified defenses.
“In those areas, when the sirens sound warning of an attack, we count from one to six, we hear an impact and we say: ‘Thank God I wasn’t there,’” says Chaus, dressed in the characteristic olive green T-shirt and style pants. military that is also used by President Volodimir Zelensky. “The fear of a new invasion has been among us since April 2022, when the Russian troops withdrew,” he confesses. “Whether they will… we don’t know.”
In the central square of the city, one of the palpable warnings that a war is taking place here – and very close – are dozens of posters with the faces of soldiers killed in the conflict. “The images rotate, and sometimes, unfortunately, very quickly,” Volodimir, a university professor of history in Chernigov, tells the nation. There is also no shortage of sirens – especially at night, they warn – and power outages are recurrent due to Russian attacks on electrical infrastructure.
Mining is another of the great threats to the civilian population along the border, with vast rural areas. Almost 82,000 explosives have been removed since 2022, but tens of thousands still remain, Ukrainian authorities warn.
At the beginning of the invasion, Parts of the region that are very close to the city were occupied for just over a month by troops, in Moscow’s attempt to capture kyiv. “We suffered a lot from the war. “Russia is a terrorist state and is a very powerful enemy,” warns Chaus in Chernigov, which also shares 232 kilometers with Belarus, a country allied to Vladimir Putin’s government and where the Russian military mobilization began in February 2022. The Russian president visited yesterday in Minsk to his Belarusian counterpart, Aleksander Lukashenko, and affirmed that the western border of both partners is secured “in its entirety” with the deployment of defense systems, troops and nuclear weapons in Belarusian territory.
For the inhabitants of Chernigov, one of the biggest surprises of the invasion was the incursion of Belarusian platoons, a community with which they maintained a good connection here, they say.
From 2022, some 700 civilians were killed, 1,400 injured and 14,000 infrastructure targets in the region were destroyed. by the Russian offensive, which led the local government to launch a monumental plan to rebuild houses, schools and hospitals. Last month, a missile attack killed 18 people and injured 60 on an eight-story building in a densely populated area of the city of Chernigov, which has about 285,000 residents.
Just 20 kilometers south, in an area surrounded by pine and poplar trees, is the town of Yahidne, where one of the most dramatic stories of the Russian offensive took place. Although a little more than two years have passed, Ivan Polgui, 64, remembers everything in detail. His story of the mass kidnapping of 367 people – including 70 children – held for 27 days in a 197 m2 space, including him and his entire family, still shocks.
For the people of this town that almanac records a period of unimaginable trauma which lasted from March 3 to 31, with ten civilians dead due to overcrowding and inhumane conditions. There were no bathrooms, needs were done in buckets and the prisoners – among them a one-year-old baby – barely received water and boiled cabbage in small plastic cups.
“No one knows what to expect in such a situation. Before dying people went crazy”says Polgui, who spent the kidnapping sitting on a bench with his wife, two sons, his daughters-in-law and two grandchildren. “Every time a person died we asked the Russians to let us remove the body,” he says, while showing the place where the bodies were placed. There was so little space they had, even without light, with a lack of oxygen and extreme temperatures, that they had no way to move during the confinement.
The tragedy marked the town forever, that of the 400 inhabitants it had, only less than half remained. “Many are afraid to return and others were left without homes, destroyed by the Russians.”
On a damp white wall in the basement of the school in Yahidne, where Polgui worked, the man points to a rudimentary calendar, drawn with a red crayon. Also a part of the Ukrainian anthem written on the wall, and another with the key dates of the confinement that marked it forever: “March 31: our troops came.”
THE NATION
