War in Ukraine. 74th day

“The bodies lay on the streets for weeks. We tried not to look at them in order to keep his mind. We could not bury dead people, because it was tantamount to death. The shelling was without stops, ”-the 52-year-old resident of the Kharkov raisins Elena, who had recently left the city occupied by the Russian military, told BBC what had happened since the beginning of the war.

Together with her daughter, Elena stayed in the basement of kindergarten for two months. At the end of April, they and two dozens of people managed to go to Poltava along a route organized by volunteers. According to Elena, when they passed Russian checkpoints, and the military asked them where they were sent, they had to answer that Russia was.

Elena said that in Raisins the military "robbed everything, including the underwear of people." The soldiers, according to her, traveled around the city on stolen cars with signs of Z : “They were armed and often very drunk. It was very scary when an armored personnel carrier was driving along your street, and soldiers with machine guns sat in it. We tried to hide. ”

Another BBC interlocutor Katerina, together with her husband and two children, left Raisins in early March. According to her, before evacuation, they spent a week in the basement. When the shell fell nearby, the ceiling began to crumble there, she recalled. The city remained in the city, Katerina, who did not manage to evacuate.

“She calls me from time to time - sometimes once a week,” the woman says. “Even now, when I am safe, I cannot feel 100% in order, because my mother remained in a city that does not exist.”

The deputy of the Izyum City Council Maxim Strelnik told the publication that 80% of the city was destroyed. He noted that from the raisins there were from 10,000 to 15,000 civilians. “There is no water, electricity, gas, heating, the sewage system does not work,” he said. The last week in the city there is no telephone connection.

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