A member of the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces surveys the extensive damage following a shelling in Kharkiv
(Picture: AFP via Getty Images)Last night my wife and I stayed in the metro station in downtown Kharkiv, finding shelter from night rockets and air bombing. The blasts can be heard even deep underground.
It was our fourth night here, but each and everyone is worth a short novel. Our metro neighbours are all sorts of people from plumbers to archaeologists, IT specialists, and bartenders, yet all united by hope and courage, and readiness to help those in need and take care of the elderly.
Three days ago, one of our neighbours fled to western Ukraine leaving his dementia-stricken mother on a terrace of a restaurant next to the metro. She is Russian. Ironically enough, we take care of her while her compatriots destroy our home city.
Kharkiv, until recently home to 1.5 million people, has experienced one of the harshest attacks during this war among the Ukrainian cities.
Russian troops entered it only once, reaching the very downtown, but they were smashed by our army within a couple of hours. Since then, the enemy uses weaponry firing from a distance: the result – a merciless destruction of the residential areas on the city’s North side.
The multiple rocket artillery “Grad” has ruined about a third of Kharkiv. Enemy aircraft drop bombs and rockets on to the parts that are not reachable by other means. The central Svobody (Freedom) square, one of the largest in Europe, resembles WWII footage after being targeted by a rocket attack.
I was there a day earlier delivering several cartons of Molotov cocktails we had prepared with my fellow neighbours.
Day by day Kharkiv is becoming more like a ghost city. Trains with refugees heading towards the western cities of Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk are leaving constantly. People are packed in them as densely as sardines in a can.
Our friends, who were living in the largest residential area of Kharkiv and spent a week hiding in the basement, called us on their way to Dnipro - the city in central Ukraine that so far remains relatively intact. They didn’t use a humanitarian corridor to get out for Kharkiv, the contrary to Russian propaganda, is not fully encircled.
The remnants of Kharkiv function properly, so there’s no drastic shortage of either food or supplies so far. The internet, electricity, water, gas, and heating are running properly, and when cut off by shelling are rapidly restored by the respective city services.
Believe me, Kharkiv, a largely Russian-speaking city, has no room left for pro-Russian sentiment. Now we are all united by our enemy.
And world, we are resisting, in your name too, but please close the sky over Ukraine.
* Glib Mazepa is a PhD student at Lausanne University and Special Correspondent for the Kyiv Post in Kharkiv
