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Voices of war
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One-way road, road back — execution

Anton Kovalenko was dragged out of the cellar and forced to carry bricks from his yard to block the windows in the houses where the Russians had set up headquarters. He had to bury a civilian shot in a car. When he evacuated his grandmother, the Russians rode tanks around a column of civilian vehicles and frightened people with stun grenades.

‘We looked like vagabonds — dirty and scared’

Telling her story, Iryna Kovalchuk cannot contain her emotions. The experienced fear still grips the woman. Her sons-in-law were taken prisoner and beaten, and her niece and the child were terrified when the Russians with machine guns broke into their house in search of weapons.

Constant plane attacks and barrages overhead

On 24 February 2022, Valerii Kovinko and his family left the capital for their house in the village of Stoianka, Buchansky district, hoping it would be safer there. The village turned out to be in a gray zone: between the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the Russians. The most terrible thing, the man says, was the bombing of Russian aircraft.

When the sky is blacker than the Earth — the battle for Dmytrivka

The village of Dmytrivka in the Buchansky district of the Kyiv Region was partially occupied at the beginning of the Russian invasion. On 30 March 2022, There was a decisive tank battle called an example of the courage and unity of Ukrainians. The village was liberated. Olha Tokiy admits that if the Russians entered her part of the village, she would ask to be shot immediately.

He dreamed of building a superhouse

Robotics engineer Mykola Kononenko has been saving money for ten years to build an original house in the village of Velyka Dymerka. Unfortunately, his house burned to the ground and cannot be restored. Mykola says he had worked with the Russians before and never had any illusions about them.

‘When Freedom Square was hit by a rocket, our house shook’

Nataliia Frolova has two native cities: Berdiansk, where she was born and raised her daughter, and Kharkiv, where she had moved a few years before the full-scale war. Both cities suffered at the hands of the enemy.

‘Ukrainians have a collective trauma’, — psychologist Alena Hrybanova

Where does the sadism of the Russian military come from? Why is it sometimes beneficial for Ukrainians to be victims? What's wrong with the word “victim”? We are talking to a crisis psychologist who has worked in Belarus for a long time and now helps psychologists in Ukraine.

Eight days in the ice-cold cellar

Antonina Vakulenko from Velyka Dymerka in the Kyiv Region found herself under occupation with her 30-year-old son, who uses a wheelchair. They hid in the cellar for over a week and prayed to God that the invaders would not find them.

They covered the child’s mouth so that the Russians would not find people in the cellar

This is the story of Nadiia Makartseva, a village Velyka Dymerka resident who spent almost a month in the occupation. The Russians she had to communicate with said they were forced to fight. But this did not prevent them from shooting people on the roads, looting, and acting like they owned people’s houses.

‘With a white scarf towards Russian tank’

Maryna Belkova lived in Bohdanivka, Kyiv Region. She had to ask permission from the Russian military to evacuate her family. Her son hung white ribbons on the car, and Maryna walked in front with a white scarf in her hands. The Russians took away the son and husband of her relative. Their fate, like the other missing men, is unknown.

Viktoriia Ivlieva: ‘I would never defend Russia’

Journalist and photographer Viktoriia Ivlieva calls herself a “bad Russian” and dreams of seeing the president of her country in court.

‘The Russians mindlessly destroy everything around,’ — Mariia Karandiuk, Zalissia

She was born in 1941 and survived the German occupation and exile. During World War II, the Germans almost burned down the warehouse where she was with her mother. In 2022, ruthless invaders came to Ukraine again. Now peaceful Ukrainians are being killed by Russians.

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