For nearly four weeks, the 130 residents of the Ukrainian hamlet of Yahidne sat in the basement of the local school, a space of 65 square meters. From March 5 to April 2, they were held hostage by Russian soldiers. There were about fifty children, including babies. Twice a day they were allowed to go outside to cook food over an open fire. They had to do their needs inside, in buckets.
Space was so limited that people had to sleep standing up. There was no ventilation, the windows were taped shut. Twelve elderly people died, probably from exhaustion or suffocation. Their fellow villagers were sometimes unable to take their bodies out until days later, because the soldiers did not allow it and because there was shooting outside.
The drama in Yahidne, south of the northern city of Chernihiv, came out this week. The details were recorded by reporters from the BBC† Already on the stairs to the cellar they smelled “the stench of disease and decay.” Mykola Klymtjsoek (60) told them that he tied himself to a railing with a scarf for 25 nights, so as not to fall over while sleeping.
On March 29, Russian negotiators in Istanbul announced that Russia would “drasically reduce” its “military activities” around Kiev and Chernihiv. In the days that followed, Russian soldiers withdrew around both cities. On Friday, the British Ministry of Defense confirmed that the Russian army has completely withdrawn from the north. It is expected that this will be a regrouping, and that Russia will soon start a new offensive in the east and southeast, the other battleground.
After the departure of the Russian army, it becomes apparent what six weeks of war and occupation have wrought in northern Ukraine. It probably won’t stop at the massacre of Boetsja. The more journalists enter the until recently closed-off villages and suburbs, the more misdeeds come out. Targeted actions against ordinary citizens . Destruction of residential areas, attacks on hospitals. Chernihiv is the largest city that has been returned to Ukraine. The road to Kiev is open again, the stories are unleashed.
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Rockets next to town hall
Ukrainians speak with pride about Chernihiv, a city with a long and rich past. The Transfiguration Cathedral, built in the eleventh century, is one of the oldest churches in Ukraine. The church survived the Russian siege. Lucky, because according to mayor Vladyslav Altroskenko, 70 percent of the city has been destroyed. The stadium, the library, the hotel, the youth center that was housed in a beautiful old cinema; they are broken. The mayor himself survived two rockets right next to City Hall.
Read also this article about the ‘motives’ behind Boetsja
Chernihiv is located more than 140 kilometers northeast of Kiev and 40 kilometers from the Belarusian border. The proximity of ally Belarus made the area around Chernihiv the first prey of Russian units. They had been ready in Belarus for weeks before the invasion that began on 24 February.
Chernihiv came under fire from day one. Residents of the city still fear the return of the Russians, because despite the withdrawal they are close, on the other side of the border.
The Russian plan was to push through to Kiev quickly. Chernihiv and Kiev are well connected by a stretch of the European highway E95. A Russian soldier in Yahidne, which is on the E95, told hostage Klymtjsuk that they would stay in Ukraine for four days. That would be enough to take Kiev.
Things went differently.
The resistance of the Ukrainian army caused Russian soldiers to entrenched in the places around Kiev and Chernihiv. These cities were not taken. Chernihiv was almost completely surrounded and cut off from the outside world.
The only passage to Ukrainian territory, the bridge over the river Desna on the south side of the city, was bombed by the Russians on March 23. Only pedestrians could cross the road, but anyone who dared was fired upon.
Water distribution
More than half of Chernihiv’s 385,000 residents fled in the first two weeks after the invasion. From March 10, the city was besieged. From that moment on, the 130,000 remaining inhabitants had hardly any water, electricity, food and medicine. They lived in basements or stood in long lines at water distribution points. Volunteers delivered food. On Friday, the mayor spoke of seven hundred deaths, both civilians and soldiers. It is unknown how many corpses lie under the rubble or have been hastily buried. Two hundred are missing.
Improvising and scratching, that’s what it came down to for the citizens. Vladimir Urodov told news site meduza how he daily swapped eggs so he could make an omelette for his wife. “I got the eggs from an acquaintance with chickens, outside the city. I paid with bread, which I paid at the bakery with medicines. People from our shelter stood in line for hours at pharmacies.”
The danger of those rows became apparent on March 16, when rockets hit a supermarket. Fourteen people died. They queued for bread. The total death toll that day was 53, Governor Vyachelav Tchaus reported, who informed the population every morning with video messages via Telegram. A day later, shelling followed at the hospital where the wounded had been taken. The other major attack was on March 3, when eight bombs killed 47 people in a residential area.
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Photo Evgeniy Maloletka / AP
Doctors at Chernihiv hospitals say cluster bombs were used. They had to extract shrapnel, metal and glass from the bodies of their patients. They operated under the light of flashlights. Generators, also highly sought after for charging telephones, were used for a few hours a day, mainly to heat baby milk.
Read also this interview about negotiating with Russia
A reporter from Britain’s Sky News hit a surprisingly optimistic Antonina Budnyk (60) in a hospital. She lost a leg, an eye and several fingers in a shelling of her home on March 22. Budnyk: „I will see my city happy and rebuilt. People will return. I really want it, I will experience it.”
Hung in the garden
In addition to the permanent shelling, there was violence and intimidation. And there was looting. Alexei Pavliuk (26) from the village of Lukashivka, southeast of Chernihiv, talks about it in a report by The Washington Post† Three Russian soldiers dragged Pavluuk and a friend from their home and hung them by their arms from a tree in the yard. They were stripped naked, given a gun to their chest. After the soldiers ransacked the house, they cut the two men loose. Elsewhere in the village, carpets and pillows were stolen. Another resident: “They tied our mattresses to their tank and drove off. Then we slept for three weeks on the cold basement floor.”
Since the withdrawal, images have appeared on social media of Russian soldiers sending all kinds of goods home from the office of a Russian courier company in Belarus. ‘s cameras courier company SDEK, which recorded the surveillance images, were evicted on Friday. Jokes are circulating in Ukraine about Russian soldiers stealing washing machines, but in Siberia no running water.
Student Ivan Matsoeta turned seventeen on the third day from the war. During the siege of Chernihiv, he and 80 others took shelter in the basement of his school. Every morning he went to a classroom, where he wrote the new date on the blackboard with a piece of chalk. He crossed out the previous day. Matsuta: “I thought, if the school is bombed and people search the rubble, they might find this sign. Then they can see how long we lasted.”
With the collaboration of Viktoriia Novytska.
A version of this article also appeared in NRC Handelsblad on 9 April 2022
A version of this article also appeared in NRC on the morning of April 9, 2022