War on the heart

Kharkov miraculously was not drawn into the confrontation in the southeast of Ukraine

 ** Now it is a front -line city: the military, refugees and volunteers, supplying the Ukrainian army with everything necessary, have become part of the city landscape. The New Times correspondent met in Kharkov with people whose life was truly tested for strength. Among them was the governor of the Kharkov region Igor Baluta ** 

Kharkov Square of Freedom became the arena of the confrontation of the authorities and pro -Russian activists

Photo: Sergey Kozlov/ITAR-TASS, Marya Varva

Ukrainian shooter

In ordinary life, Alexander Mamalu is a judge who was engaged in the decision of economic disputes. He had to do business related to the interests of businessmen of a national scale. The judge will get off the call - “A couple of trifles,” says Alexander. But there was no doubt: "This is my homeland, and a war came here."

Now Alexander is a sniper, “works”, as it is expressed, in the area of ​​the Donetsk airport. The title is the guard of the senior soldier, which corresponds to the Russian corporal.

Before “green little men” appeared in the Crimea, Alexander did not feel like an ardent patriot of Ukraine.

“Where does this feeling come from if I lived in the Union for 16 years. I have a lot of friends in Russia, and I never considered myself a super-Ukrainian. My native language is Russian. Bandera ideas were never close to me, if not more. But I took the Crimea - my personal Crimea, my childhood, my sea. But I did nothing wrong with anyone. And after that I became a real Ukrainian - self -identification took place under 40 years. ”

Alexander went to snipers because he was fond of shooting in peaceful life. It refuses to talk about combat results - "Only I, my command and God know about it."

Initially, Alexander had 17 people in the platoon, eight were left. Six are missing. “Their fate is unknown to us. But we do not wish them captivity. None of the snipers should fall into captivity, because captivity is a terrible death, fierce ... Nobody wants to die without eyes and fingers. ”

For all the time of the service, prisoners, whom Alexander saw, in 99 % of cases were local. “Once I just got to the airport commander of the D-30 howitzer battery-he was the captain of the Russian army.”

The civilian population, according to Alexander, belongs to the Ukrainian military, “ambiguously,” but people who carry food, coffee in three -liter banks, all sorts of sweets are many of them.

Moral spirit in the Ukrainian army is high, claims Mamalu: “Such moods: we will have to fight for 10 years, we will fight for 10 years. We need 20, we will be 20. But at the end - to take the Crimea and stand on the previous border. ”

Jeanne's happiness

Zhanna Sologub lived in the village of Krasnoyar near Lugansk, worked as an engineer at the Lugansktlovod plant. The war came to her life on August 9, 2014-that day, the Ukrainian National Guard organized the export of the inhabitants of Krasnoyar to the city of Happiness, because the shelling became regular: “Our village was, in fact, on the forefront. The son and his family literally gathered in a minute and left. ” And after a few minutes, shelling began.

“And here we go into the yard. I go a little ahead - literally a meter from my husband. He closes the gate, and at that moment a shell - he was not heard at all - he enters the corner of the house. There is a shock wave very strong - I have a ringing ringing in my ears. I see that my legs were immediately swollen and became blue-green. From one, the blood fountain beats, the meat is torn off, I see something white, it looks like bones. The first instinct is to run to the water to wash the blood, but I remembered that we have no water for several days. There is no pain - only shock. The husband shouts: “I am alive. Are you alive? " And so I’m crawling somewhere and feel: blood squints-and with every second I am weaker. ”

It was possible to crawl to the road, where Jeanne was noticed from a passing car, the driver of which rushed to the nearest post of the National Guard.

“The guys are well done, arrived in five to seven minutes, immediately injected painkillers, examined, provided first aid and said that they would be taken to the hospital in happiness. I fell asleep all the time, and they all pull me: "Do not sleep, you can’t sleep." In the hospital, I immediately at the operating table. Military hospital - everything is done in a second. Both legs were interrupted for me, one foot was completely demolished, and fragments all over my body. They found one behind the ear - miraculously did not interrupt the sleepy artery. And the husband had a fragment in the spinal cord - he immediately paralyzed the lower body: he did not feel either his legs, nor the intestines, or the bladder. ”

On August 14, the daughter of Jeanne made her way to Lugansk with a risk to life. She contacted the Internet with volunteer Victoria Milyutina, and she organized an ambulance on which the spouses were taken to the Kharkov hospital.

“With my husband, we were distributed on different floors, and after three days the children told me that they could not save him. It was on Independence Day, August 24. ”

And with the assistance of the Kharkov charitable foundation, Jeanne was sent to be treated to Austria.

“We flew with the Minister of Foreign Affairs (Austria) Sebastian Kurtz. He kindly provided his plane. All the best places were given to the wounded, and the minister himself sat down with his assistant from behind. We did not have passports and visas, but we were allowed with the minister. ”

The treatment was paid by the Lower Austria government. Jeanne was sent to the hospital in the city of St. Petersburg, the day of stay in which, according to her, is at least € 600. Austrian doctors needed two operations to recreat Jeanne's foot from a mess of broken bones, meat and fragments. Recovery took place in record time. All this time, local Ukrainians, and sometimes Russians, constantly brought her things and products and supported morally.

“With a sense of support for all of Ukraine, I recovered ahead of schedule,” Jeanne tries to joke. The quality of life in Europe, where the Lugansk woman was the first time, made an indelible impression on her.

“Everyone is equal there, everyone is equally socially protected, and each citizen treats as a person worthy of respect. I will not say to myself what Euromaidan supported. Lugansk, you know, is configured pro -Russian. But there was no information to understand what Europe is. ”

In the past parliamentary elections, Jeanne voted for the Party of Regions, now she likes Poroshenko - because he leads Ukraine to Europe.

“I am Russian, born in Yekaterinburg. But I want to stay in Ukraine. My relatives there (in Russia) also support Ukraine. In general, people in Russia are good. ”

The village of Krasnoyar is now under the control of the LPR. But Jeanne wants to return there after a complete recovery - it is necessary to fix the house, maybe they will give a salary at the factory. Although her son believes that this is not the best idea.

The prayer of the volunteer

Elena Shvydkaya is a volunteer. On her own minivan, she transports clothes, foods in the anti -terrorist operation zone in the anti -terrorist operation zone. We met on the day when she returned from the next trip - went to a checkpoint near Donetsk, where the soldiers were on duty, whom she last saw two months ago. Then they said goodbye forever - neither they nor Elena herself were sure that they would survive.

This was in Starobeshevo on August 24 - on the Independence Day of Ukraine.

“We arrived at three in the morning. Five kilometers from us - fireworks, radiance - just a concert AC/DC. In fact, we needed there, but we were advised to wait in the morning. "

We spent the night, and at six in the morning we still went to the front line. Elena did not yet know that the enemy (the Ukrainian military was sure that at that moment regular Rossi units acted against them) already surrounded this area from three sides and was about to begin to water it with “hurricanes” and “grades”.

“I already had such a cold sense of fear when a voice sits down and you cannot comment on what is happening. A lieutenant approaches me, takes off his body armor and puts him on me. “I have a bad foreboding,” he says. We are sitting and talking. And everyone had a condition that we were talking for the last time - about life, about families, about what we did not. I called home to just talk to my mother and daughter. ”

The team arrived to leave.

“And here“ hurricanes ”catch up with us. At the same time, information comes that we are taken to the ring. At that moment, we stood and said goodbye forever. We understood that we were suicide bombers. ”

The commander told the volunteers to escape, without waiting for the military to take off the camp.

“We jump into the car, break through the field that was shot. I rode and read a prayer aloud. ”

Having left on the highway, Elena mixed up the direction and moved directly to the DPR checkpoint, but at the last moment she managed to make a sharp turn on the tire torn by fragments.

“Our Kia saved us. I am going to write about this to Koreans. ”

The military, with whom Elena then said goodbye, also managed to escape. They were then sent to rest, and now they were returned to duty.

“We met again - there was such a joy. This situation has been akin to us. ”

Governor's exam

On a massive table in the office of the governor of the Kharkov region Igor Baluta is a dent from stone. He flew from the square through broken glass on the night of April 6 to 7, when pro -Russian demonstrators tried to take power in the city. Baluta, appointed to the governor’s post with new authorities, was in the office at that time.

"The curtain caught fire in the next room - I personally stewed."

Then the fire began in the entire building of the regional administration. But Balut eventually managed to get out of him. At 23.30, the separatists captured the building. These days, according to him, Kharkov had every chance to turn into another “people's republic”.

“We were as close to it as Donetsk and Lugansk. It all started according to the same scenario, at the same time. But we reacted hard and correctly. Someone tried to negotiate with Kyiv, to bargain something for himself. This is the wrong position. By the decision to free the building (regional administration), we are owe to the Minister of the Interior (Arsen Avakov). At 06.15 in the morning, the Ukrainian flag was again hoisted over the building. Beautifully Vinnitsa division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs worked - as in American cinema. "

The Balut had to withstand another exam on April 22, when the separatists began to break the tent camp near the monument to Lenin on Square Square, the view of which opens from the governor's office. Tires were brought to the tents, generators were placed. There were people with weapons. Baluta gathered the security forces.

“I say:“ Gentlemen, I understand something in how the revolution is being done. They act very clearly. Either we will remove them today, or they will already be the hosts in the city tomorrow. ” And then the head of the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs took away 780 persons, and we cleaned the area. Those who were armed - about 15 people - were arrested. "

Now, according to Baluta, the threat of destabilization in Kharkov is reduced at times.

“We worked a lot. We held preventive conversations with many of the active separatists who either changed their point of view or left the region. Some are in the PPZ and are waiting for a fair court. ”

According to Baluta, many separatists stopped a very stringent reaction of law enforcement agencies. Nevertheless, a couple of months the city has been in the threat of a full -scale invasion of the Russian army.

“From the end of May, demonstrations of force began. Russian troops approached a distance of 800 meters to the border and walked along it. And in July there was even a case when we were told that Russian troops were already in our territory. But it turned out that the woman who followed her boar - she herself was in the Russian Federation. Yes, these were real Russian units, but on their territory. ”

The governor received the signals that “now begins” regularly. But now the concentration of Russian troops in areas adjacent to the Kharkov region, according to Baluta, has decreased.

From the statue of Lenin, near which the separatists had previously gathered, now there is only one boot. Lenin himself was demolished by radicals and football fans on September 28. The governor is not too pleased with how this happened - he would like the monument to be dismantled in a civilized manner, by decision of the authorities.

“I do not think that it was the choice of most Kharkiv residents. 62 % of residents believe that this was done not in the way that is needed. Lenin had to be dismantled, not demolished. But the process was delayed all the time by the city authorities. This raised a degree of radical comrades from the national forces. Somewhere it was our flaw. I was here, called the people who were near Lenin - to talk, to explain that it was not the time, that this is wrong, that it could affect the polls. But they answered: we have already obeyed you once and in six months in a civilized one decided nothing. So it happened what happened ... "

Ukraine will have to survive a very difficult winter, but Baluta asks for the region entrusted to him not to worry: “Come to us in March. We will have a warm winter. Everything will be fine. "