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Voices of war
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Buried alive — memories of a writer from Borodianka

Valentyna Lysenko is a writer who has lived almost her entire life in Borodianka, in the Kyiv Region. Together with her family, she endured several air raids and miraculously survived. The woman recalls how people in the basement of a destroyed house nearby begged for help for five days, but the Russians forbade saving them.

‘People were sitting without a piece of bread; everyone was afraid to get near here’

Vitalii Koretskyi is a resident of the Kopyliv village in the Kyiv Region. He says that he mainly saw Buryats in the village. His neighbor died when, out of desperation, he tried to drive out through a mined field, and his nephew and friend were found shot with their hands tied.

A Russian shot at me from a helicopter — Stepan Boiarchuk, Zahaltsi village

The tiles in Stepan’s yard are riddled with bullet marks left by the Russian helicopter pilot. His property burned to the ground. Fortunately, the dog managed to survive the terrible burns. The Russians tortured his neighbor, Hryhorii, and eventually killed him, as well as two peaceful women who simply ran down the street.

‘A bomb was dropped from a plane! We were left without a roof over our heads...’

Olha Smykovska lives in the Kyiv Region in the village of Kopyliv. In the first days of the war, the Russians dropped an aerial bomb near the woman’s house. Olha’s son went to war to defend Ukraine and was seriously wounded. And then she lost her daughter.

‘The dog saved us...’

Tetiana Lukianenko is a resident of the village of Zahaltsi, Kyiv Region. A slab fell on a woman while she was hiding with her dog and son in a cellar during the bombing. The family moved to the summer pavilion when suddenly the Russians showed up.

‘During the evacuation, the Russians pointed machine guns at us’

Olena Atrashkova is a resident of the Kopyliv village in the Kyiv Region. The woman survived the occupation and witnessed the Russians breaking locks and robbing the post office. The shock wave knocked out the door to her house, and she, with the children, had to hide from the bombings with their neighbors. Olena says the worst thing was when nine Russians burst into the summer kitchen while she was there.

‘Mom died on the basement’s steps,’ — Mikhailo Ivanov, Mariupol

Mikhailo worked as a sound engineer at the Mariupol Drama Theater. He was seriously injured in his yard. In conditions of constant shelling and lack of electricity and medicine, Mariupol doctors managed to save Mikhailo’s leg. But there was no one to help his mother.

‘We had a Ukrainian flag hidden in our flat’ — Life in Izium under Russian occupation

Olha Myroshnychenko was born in Izium (Kharkiv Region). The young woman survived a six-month occupation of her home town. She says she always believed the enemy would run away. So she was not afraid to tell the Russians everything she thought about them.

‘Nothing left. Everything was burnt out’

Serhii Radchenko from the village of Makariv is 70 years old. Despite his age, he and his neighbors were forced to independently repair the roof and restore order in the house that had been damaged by Russian shelling. He says the apartment still floods, and sometimes he has to pick out 15 buckets of water.

‘My brother was captured, and my house was bombed out’

During active hostilities, an enemy shell almost destroyed the ancestral house of the village Makariv resident, Volodymyr Tokar. His cousin was captured in Mariupol. The man returned home in the fall of 2022 as part of a prisoner exchange, when 215 Ukrainians were exchanged for Viktor Medvedchuk and 55 occupiers.

Now we are homeless

Halyna Koretska lives with her husband in the village of Kopyliv, Kyiv Region. Barely holding back her tears, Halyna wanders around the house, which two enemy Grads [multiple propelled rockets] destroyed. The woman remembers where the pictures she loved to embroider and the flowerpots were. “But the house is not important,” — says Halyna — “The Russians killed my nephew.”

‘A woman died beside my husband. Her leg was blown off’

“We made a fire outside to cook food or drink tea. We were hungry all the time,” says a resident of Vuhledar (a town in Donetsk Region).

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