It had only been three weeks since the invasion, but it felt as if the war had lasted a lifetime. We were exhausted and overwhelmed. By mid-March, the city of Kharkiv, situated 25 miles from the Russian border, looked unreachable from Kyiv, where I live. Ukrainians were adjusting to this new life. Under the constant shelling, hotels and shops were not able to offer any kind of normal service. We were not sure whether petrol stations were open. Yet the second-biggest city in Ukraine, where around 2 million people were living, was too important to stay away from. I had close friends who could host me. So I went.
It was my friends who had said, in the early hours of the morning of 24 February, that “Kharkiv is being bombed”, confirming our worst fears. I had visited them in January, before the war, reporting on the mood in the city, and visited their newly bought apartment on the top floor of an old house in the centre. Kharkiv was the first place in Ukraine to have its city centre shelled. It was heartbreaking in March to see part of that street destroyed by rockets, though their house survived.
I travelled from Kyiv with a photographer friend; we had worked together during the 2014 Maidan revolution. He later got a job at a major lifestyle magazine, but after the Russian invasion he returned to frontline work. The third person in our crew was a Polish TV correspondent whom I had met while reporting the aftermath of the siege of Aleppo in Syria in 2016. I have covered foreign conflicts before, but the fact that this one was taking place in my home country still makes me uncomfortable.
On 13 March, we went to northern Saltivka – at that point, the Kharkiv suburb that had sustained the most damage. The Russians were less than a mile away; tall concrete high-rises were the last real frontier. It was around -18C, and explosions were constant, so at first we stayed in a basement with soldiers. They had come from the southern Mykolaiv region, where I had been a few days before. They were not volunteers but members of the regular armed forces.
“What are you fighting for here,” I asked.
“My wife and kids,” the eldest said. “They have stayed in Ukraine,” he added. “Why should they flee? It’s our land.” Another guy, Dorin, had a wife and two sons in the south. His brother-in-law was also fighting.
“Why do you have two knives,” we asked.
“One for the lard, another for the onion,” Dorin said, without a hint of irony. (It’s a typical Ukrainian snack.) Together, with his squad, we laughed – we laughed louder than the sound of the shelling.
Volunteers had tried to evacuate as many people as possible from northern Saltivka, but there are always a few elderly people who say, “I’d prefer to die at home.” When we saw an elderly man standing near one of the doorways, I asked why he was staying.
“I wish to leave,” he answered, explaining he had spent 18 days without electricity. He just didn’t know how to. We immediately decided that we would help him evacuate. It was a pure accident that he came to us – he was on his way to boil some water in the only basement apartment that still had electricity. He lived in a building nearby on the ninth floor, with windows facing the Russian troops. His name was Leonid Andriyovych, and he was 72.
It took some time for our crew to be ready to leave, so we stayed in a basement for a bit longer, and then I took the photo you see, of Leonid and a soldier. Compared with his comrades, many in their 30s, the guy was young: 21 years old. According to my notes his name was Roman, in normal times a professional sportsman. While others talked about their families all the time, he remained silent. We brought Leonid Andriyovych to the train station, which served as a humanitarian hub, where he boarded the train to Poltava – a regional capital west of Kharkiv – where his sister lived. By the evening he had already had a warm meal with her.
Three months later, I went back to the area. A few villages around Kharkiv had been liberated and the frontline had been pushed back, so northern Saltivka had become accessible for civilians once again. Some residents had come back to check their flats. The damage in the area was considerably worse. I tried to spot Leonid Andriyovych’s flat – it looked completely burnt-out. I had seen many destroyed houses by then, but it really feels different to see a destroyed house that you yourself have once stepped into, even for a moment.
A few weeks after that second visit, my photographer friend was conscripted into the Ukrainian army, where he trained to become a paratrooper. He went through the toughest battles in the Donbas, was among those liberating Izium, and lost close colleagues during the fight for Lyman and later extremely difficult fights in the Luhansk region. Northern Saltivka in March doesn’t look dangerous at all compared to what he ended up going through.
Now the whole Kharkiv region is liberated. But its proximity to Russia means the residents remain on alert. The city has adjusted to a horrible rhythm of shelling and power cuts. “Ferroconcrete” is a nickname the city got: Kharkiv is known for its communist-era steel and concrete architecture – this term of endearment has come to symbolise the strength and resilience of its people. It’s printed on T-shirts and other souvenirs. The more things are hit, the stronger we feel about them. Some of my Kharkiv friends moved to Kyiv, others stayed to defend the city and care for those in need.
Kyiv still remains a safer place, largely because the air defences in the capital are the strongest in the country. Since October we’ve also been getting used to the airstrikes on the capital, which have been targeting critical infrastructure, in particular power stations. At times this winter we may not have proper running water, electricity or heating. At the same time, I really understand why people want to stay in their homes unless it’s absolutely unbearable.
I have been in touch with Leonid Andriyovych. He is still staying with his sister in Poltava. “We’re having a romantic dinner with the candles,” he joked. He hasn’t returned to Kharkiv since we left, but his neighbours have informed him that his nine-storey block of flats has fully collapsed. He thanked me for not forgetting him. I said, “Not at all.”
I am glad that I’ve been able to follow up with him. I regret that I cannot do the same with the soldiers we met during those early days of the war. I have just their names in my notes. I also admit that I often do not dare write down the phone numbers of the soldiers, as I would be afraid to later call them. Sometimes I prefer not to know what happened.
Nataliya Gumenyuk is a Ukrainian journalist, and co-founder of the Reckoning Project
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