Daylight hours are spent searching for water and standing in line to get the few food items that are available, while bombs and shells rain down.
This is the second-month of Russia’s invasion. It is now what life is like in Chernihiv. A besieged city in northern Ukraine, where death is all around.
It’s not as associated with human suffering and atrocious acts of violence as , the pulverized south city of Mariupol. Chernihiv’s remaining inhabitants are fearful that every blast, bomb, and body left uncollected on streets will ensnare them in the same horrific trap of unavoidable killings, destruction.
“Everyone is talking about Chernihiv becoming (the next) Mariupol in basements at night,” stated 38-year-old resident Ihar Kasmerchak, a linguist.
He spoke to The Associated Press via cellphone amid constant beeps that indicated his battery was running low. The city has no power, running water or heating. The list of medications that are no longer available at pharmacies grows by the day.
Kazmerchak begins his day by waiting in long lines to get water. The water is rationed at 10 liters (2 1/2 gal) per person. When water-delivery trucks arrive, people bring empty bottles and buckets to fill up.
He stated that food is in short supply and that bombing and shelling are not stopping.
Chernihiv is nestled between the Dnieper and Desna rivers. It crosses one of the main roads that the Russian troops invading Belarus used Feb. 24, for what the Kremlin intended to be a lightning strike towards Kyiv, which is only 147 km (91 miles).
According to the mayor, the city’s peace was broken and more than half the 280,000 residents fled. They were unable to know when or if the magnificent, gold-domed cathedral, as well as other cultural treasures, would be seen again. Vladyslav Atroshenko estimates Chernihiv’s wartime death toll to be in the hundreds.
Russian forces have attacked residential areas at low altitudes in “absolutely perfect weather” and “are intentionally destroying civilian infrastructure: schools and kindergartens, churches and residential buildings, as well as the local football stadium,” Atroshenko stated to Ukrainian television.
Russian bombs decimated Chernihiv’s main bridge over Desna River, on the road to Kyiv. On Friday, artillery shells made the remaining pedestrian bridge impassible, cutting off access for people looking for food or medical supplies.
The refugees from Chernihiv fled the encirclement to reach Poland this week. They described wide and terrible destruction with bombs exploding at least two schools in central Kiev and striking many homes, museums, and the stadium.
According to them, with all utilities shut down, people take water from the Desna for drinking and strikes are killing people as they wait in line for food. Volodymyr Fedorovych (77) said that he narrowly avoided a bomb falling on a breadline he was standing in only moments before. According to Fedorovych, the explosion killed 16 people and injures dozens more.
Kazmerchak stated that the siege is so intense that some trapped people cannot fear anymore.
He said, “Ravaged homes, fires and corpses on the streets, large aircraft bombs that didn’t explode in courtyards aren’t surprising anyone anymore.” “People have grown tired of being afraid and don’t go to the basements as often.”
The Russian invasion is now in its second month. It appears that many fronts have been stalled and that they are losing ground to Ukrainian counterattacks. This includes around Kyiv. While the Russians have attacked the capital city from the air, they have not captured or surrounded it. According to U.S. defense officials and French defense officials, Russian troops may have taken up defensive positions in Kyiv.
Russia continues to attack and encircle urban areas, from Chernihiv, Kharkiv, and Mariupol in south Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities dismissed statements by the Russian military indicating that they intended to focus their remaining power on freeing Ukraine’s entire eastern Donbas region. Since 2014, the region has been held partially under Russian-backed separatists.
Markian Lubkivskyi, a consultant to the Ukrainian defense minister, stated that “we cannot believe the statements made by Moscow” and added that there are still many lies and untruths from that side. “That’s why (Russian President Vladimir Putin) Putin’s goal still remains the whole of Ukraine,” Markian Lubkivskyi, a consultant to the Ukrainian defense minister, said to the BBC.
This skepticism was reinforced hours later when blasts rocked Lviv in western Ukraine, which is located about 45 miles (72 km) from the Polish border. There are approximately 200,000 displaced Ukrainians who have sought refuge there.
Olana Ukrainets (34-year-old IT worker hailing from Kharkiv) is one of them.
Ukrainets said that he was certain that the alarms would not have any effect when he arrived in Lviv. He spoke to the AP from a bomb shelter following the blasts. “Sometimes, when they rang at night, I just stayed asleep. Today, I have changed my mind. I should hide all the time. … All of the cities in Ukraine are now unsafe.”
The British defense ministry stated Saturday that they don’t anticipate any relief for residents of the bombarded cities in Ukraine anytime soon.
The U.K. ministry stated that Russia will continue to use heavy firepower in urban areas to reduce its already substantial losses. However, this could lead to more civilian casualties.
War crimes allegations have already been made in relation to previous bombings at hospitals and other nonmilitary locations, including the Mariupol theater where Ukrainian authorities claim that a Russian airstrike killed 300 people last Wednesday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy appeared via video link at Qatar’s Doha Forum on Saturday. He compared Mariupol’s destruction to the Russian and Syrian destruction of Aleppo.
More than 10 million people have fled their homes due to the invasion, nearly a quarter of Ukraine’s population. According to the United Nations, more than 3.7million have fled the country completely. Many civilians have been killed, according to United Nations estimates.
Chernihiv’s hospitals have ceased to operate and residents are forced to cook on open fires in their streets due to the lack of power. The mayor stated that the utility workers who were left behind weren’t enough to fix the damaged powerlines or restore other essential services.
Atroshenko stated to Ukrainian television that “we live without dates and days in the week.”
Kazmerchak, a linguist and scholar of linguistics, has been living in a bomb shelter since the Russian explosion that destroyed a Stalin-era movie theatre near his 12-story residence. The hotel was also destroyed by a Russian missile not far from Kazmerchak’s house.
He said, “The walls were shaking so strongly.” “I was afraid my house would fall and that I would be buried under the rubble.”
