While Russian infantry and Ukrainian troops are fighting urban combats in the streets of Vovchanskthe civilians who until last Friday lived in this small town in northeastern Ukraine are being evacuated by police and volunteers – who cannot cope – along roads that are continually attacked.
“We won’t be able to get to the center of the city, because Russian soldiers have advanced up there and clashes are taking place; “We will go through several sectors of the south to help civilians who want to evacuate,” warns Dima, one of the Ukrainian police officers who have been working overtime for six days to remove residents from Vovchansk and other towns near the border with Russia.
As we approach the city – which has become the epicenter of the Kremlin’s new offensive in Ukraine – the landscape changes: a kind of dense fog envelops the road, there are fires caused by the projectiles that fall in the areas forested and the roar of artillery is getting louder.
[Situación “crítica” para Ucrania: se retira de dos frentes en el norte ante la ofensiva rusa en Járkov]
Dima drives at a devilish speed – avoiding the holes left by the projectiles – and dozens of columns of black smoke begin to emerge on the horizon. I lose count of how many there are, at least twenty, maybe more. Each of those columns of black smoke is a recently bombed house in Vovchansk.
Run away with what you are wearing
Upon entering the urban part, the sound of explosions startles every few seconds. Most of the buildings are bombed and half burned; There are damaged power lines and trees, and the smell of burning is very intense. It looks like the set of an apocalyptic movie..
A family from Vovchansk flees the city in the face of the Russian advance and continuous artillery attacks.
We have barely traveled a few hundred meters through those devastated streets, when we find the first family that is trying to flee the place. They are two women and a man, and they carry a huge black dog, three cats and four bags with the few belongings they have been able to save.
They put everything they can into the vehicle and Dima hurries to take them to the first place. evacuation point which is located a few kilometers away. Another police unit waits there with a larger van to transport them to the town of Buhaivkawhere they will receive medical attention before embarking on the journey to Kharkiv.
[Así son los tanques tortuga con los que Rusia se protege de los certeros ataques con drones ucranianos]
Upon arrival, one of the family cats escapes. The animals are terrified by the sound of the explosions, and although her owner runs off after him, she returns alone, dejected and covered in tears. Today they have lost everything: their house, their job, their memories and even their cat.. They can’t take it anymore.
We return to Vovchansk to look for more civilians, but the job gets complicated. When turning right down one of the avenues, the police have to stop the car suddenly and turn around: the sound of assault rifles sounds just a couple of streets away. Urban fighting has spread.
War zone
We enter another sector of the city as quickly as we can, and a couple in their sixties comes out to meet us on the road. Their house has just been bombed, and they flee with almost nothing on their backs. The woman, Tatianaher hand is bloody and she is crying uncontrollably.
However, they are not tears of pain for the wounds: as soon as they get into the car, she begins to curse the Russians with thunderous rage. His sentences are interrupted by sobs, but he never looks down. It is the living image of that resilience that Ukrainians have shown to the world since the Russian invasion began.
Columns of black smoke, caused by Russian bombings in the town of Vovchansk.
When we left Tatiana and her husband Sergei At the evacuation point, the woman thanks us and blesses us. And we returned to the road to enter Vovchansk once again. The police have to pick up two firefighters who have carried out a reconnaissance patrol – under a hail of projectiles – to prepare a report on the situation.
Ukraine is ready to retake the city as soon as possible and, as evacuation teams remove the remaining civilians – between 200 and 600 people – regular troops and provided vehicles begin to enter. They are stationed on the outskirts, at crossroads, waiting for orders as protected as possible from enemy artillery.
[Médicos policías: la unidad especial de Zelenski que rescata a civiles de entre las ruinas del Donbás]
The Russian artillery works tirelessly, from positions several kilometers back, to open the way for its infantry. They are “softening” the objective, which is what is known in military jargon as the tactic that consists of indiscriminately bombing an area to make life there impossible, as a prior step to the ground assault.
For that ground assault, Russia has more than 30,000 troops deployed, only on the border with Kharkiv province. So far, they have breached through Vovchansk and towards Lyptsi. And the pressure has also increased in Kupyansk and Chuguyiv.
Kharkiv police help a woman from Vovchansk evacuate from the city, which is being occupied by Russian troops.
In just five days, Russian troops have taken ten settlements – smaller than Vovchansk – advanced more than three kilometers in the direction of Kharkiv. And the level of destruction they are causing is reminiscent of Bakhmut. The war has intensified at the level of the first months of the invasion in this part of the country, and everything indicates that it will get worse in the coming weeks.
Deja vu
This part of Ukraine was already occupied by Russian troops in 2022 – and for several months – until Zelensky’s army managed to liberate the entire province from Kharkiv with a successful and surprising counteroffensive in the fall of that same year. Kharkiv has never been an easy place for the Kremlin, and perhaps that is why it has now decided to use the tactic of devastating instead of conquering.
More than 30 settlements have been hit by artillery and mortars in the last five days: from Vovchansk to Lyptsi, passing through Vesele, Staritsa or Zarichne. And aerial bombardments have added to the Russian offensive.
The level of destruction Russia is causing will prevent residents from returning to their homes, because there are no more houses to return to. So even if Ukraine pushes Putin’s troops back to the border, the area will be relegated to becoming a huge gray zone of separation between the two contenders.
A family from Vovchansk, upon arrival at one of the points where they provide medical care to evacuees fleeing the Russian offensive in the northeast of Kharkiv.
At the close of this chronicle, Russian bombing has also extended to the city of Kharkivwhere there have been at least four airstrikes against several residential and industrial districts – in which around 20 people have been injured.
This city, Kharkov, is where police and volunteers take evacuees who, like Tatiana and her husband Sergey, have fled the bombs from the cities closest to the border with Russia. There are now a total of 7,531 people – including 568 children. It is the sad welcome they have received today, after losing everything.
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