The convoy is eternal and so is the wait. First the tanks, tearing up the asphalt with their caterpillar tracks and their engines revving like enraged lions. Then a dozen armored personnel carriers, followed by trucks with ammunition, an ambulance and a white van with a sign on the back that reads ‘bodies’. Then comes the turn for a caravan of off-road vehicles without Army markings, with perfectly equipped uniformed men. After a month of war, the Ukrainian forces stop waiting for the Russians to approach kyiv and launch a counteroffensive that has forced the enemy to retreat. According to the kyiv authorities, they are about to retake control of Irpin and are fighting to recover Bucha and Hostomel, but on the way to these cities they are liberating smaller towns every day.
Dozens of civilian cars wait for the convoy to pass in order to follow in its wake and cross the Irpin River over the only remaining bridge in the northwestern part of the capital. The rest were dynamited by the Army to hinder the enemy’s advance. “We want to go see our houses, if they are destroyed, looted… We have seen on the news that the Russians have left our town and we are going to check it,” says an elderly driver, accompanied by his wife and a dog, at the wheel of a car loaded with suitcases.
After the convoy, the Territorial Defense volunteers allow the cars to continue on their way. We flew over the small bridge and headed northwest, in the direction of Makarev. In a few minutes we are on a ghost road, with burned forest to the right and left. What has been a front line for four weeks is now a dead zone. The checkpoints we come across are empty, the road pockmarked by shells and the villages deserted. We advance with our sights set on Yasnohorodka, a town of 2,500 inhabitants that, according to soldiers consulted at the Irpin River crossing, was in Russian hands until just a few hours ago.
Artillery and more artillery in the sky. Trenches on the sides. This path looks like a line dividing the board on which the Russians and Ukrainians play their game for kyiv. Something is spotted at the end of a straight. It is still far away. They look like cement blocks and sandbags. There are two flags, but the color is not distinguished. In a second you have to decide between continuing or turning around. We continue. Meter by meter the yellow and blue colors are drawn on the flags. Relief. It is the entrance of Yasnohorodka and the first thing that the Ukrainian forces have done after regaining control is to put up the national flag. There are no soldiers in sight.
absolute destruction
Overcome the abandoned checkpoint appears absolute destruction. The church of the Virgin Mary is still standing, but with a broken dome and shots on its walls. In front of it there is not a single recognizable house, they are a jumble of iron, wood and all kinds of personal belongings. Some dogs roam among rubble and rubble.
In the middle of the desolation Yevheni and his wife Svetlana appear. They are really an apparition, like wandering spirits in the middle of nowhere. His reaction is to seek warmth from newcomers. Yevheni embraces this special envoy with the strength of a log cutter and his wife, while he cries. «This very morning they have arrested three Russian soldiers, we have been under their occupation for several days, but we had no treatment because we were locked up at home, we have barely left thirty neighbors in the town. We have been very scared, ”says this big man whose words come out broken.
Millions of refugees and displaced people who have left their homes because of the fighting are fleeing from this type of scenario. The big question Yevheni and Svetlana ask themselves is whether their neighbors will ever return.
#Trip #liberated #Ukraine