«They shoot so close that they have broken the glass of two windows. We went down to the semi-basement»

The situation in Nueva Odessa, the municipality in southern Ukraine where Gipuzkoan Iñaki Rodríguez and his family are resisting the siege by Russian troops, is intensifying. “The night has been hellish,” the lasartearra reported via email this Friday morning from his house, after communications were restored. «We have been incommunicado all night because the Russians have thrown down a repeater, but later they have managed to fix it. The courage of these men is incredible », he writes about the Ukrainian fighters.

The 56-year-old lasartearra, his wife and their five children, aged between 5 and 18 years old, are “horrified” by the news that reaches them. “They tell us that in the next town there have been quite a few deaths, including many civilians. They destroy everything », he says indignantly. The latest information refers to the fact that in nearby Nikolaev, where he is, or was, the train station closest to his house, “has been razed, like Mariúpol. They are destroying everything. They wanted to get to Nikolaev yes or yes. In the former Soviet Union, ships were manufactured there, especially submarines. Along with Odessa it is a strategic point, they want to take the entire strip at any cost. This cannot be called war. You can’t shoot at the ambulances, they don’t even respect the Red Cross signal.”

In recent days they have felt attacks closer and closer and this Friday they have remained on guard all day in case they had to take refuge in the semi-basement of the house, converted into their private bunker. “Fortune, so to speak, is that the rasputitsa has arrived, so the dirt roads turn to mud and the Russian vehicles or a large part of them get stuck,” he writes.

Rodríguez and his family, who have lived in this municipality for almost a decade, have established a relationship with the Ukrainian military who have set up their headquarters in an old mill. They offer them hot soup and tea to warm them up “and which they greatly appreciate.” In return, the fighters give the children the cold meat buns on which almost all of their diet is based.

The Lasartearra says that at home he has a water well “and although in peacetime a laboratory analyzed it and considered it drinkable, now I don’t trust it.” To eat they still have potatoes and some vegetables, “but there are no longer basic things like oil, sugar, milk or fruit. We have spent many days without anything.

The story of the lasartearra, who has his brothers Rosa, Karmele and Antonio, neighbors of Lasarte-Oria, on edge, ends abruptly. “Now they are shooting so close that they have broken the glass of two windows. We went down to the basement.”