OPEN LETTER/ Come to the dialogue and listen to me speak, otherwise I will cut off your scholarships, you will rot in prison. Please!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

Ukraine: How winter turns into a weapon of war

2022-12-10 15:31:01Kosova&Bota SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Ukraine: How winter turns into a weapon of war
Ukraine: How winter turns into a weapon of war

Russia has extended its attacks in Ukraine also against civilian infrastructure. At the beginning of winter, hundreds of thousands of people were left without lights and heating. Deutsche Welles reporter Jan-Philipp Scholz met some of them.

The most beautiful period of the year has just begun. At least for Polina and her friends. The wish list to send to the old man in the new year is compiled and now it even starts to snow. Almost all the other children left the remote village on the northeastern edge of Kharkiv region when the war broke out, and the school has long been closed. Therefore the first snow of the year is a welcome change.

Fear of falling temperatures

"Now we can play with sleds and have a snowball fight," says an enthusiastic Polina. The ten-year-old made a snowman together with her friends, the first for this year. They even managed to find a carrot to put in place of his nose. And the weather forecast says that the snowman won't melt very soon. In the coming days, temperatures are expected to be minus 12 degrees Celsius.

Ukraine: How winter turns into a weapon of war
Fear of falling temperatures – Ukraine has harsh winters with temperatures of minus 10 degrees

Most adults in the region are not happy about the weather forecast. On the contrary, with the drop in temperatures, the concern that they will not be able to wake up the next morning has increased. "The frost is getting bigger and bigger and the night must be spent in the dark. I don't want to think about where we are going," says Iryna. She is retired and lives on the outskirts of the town of Isjum, in the east of Ukraine, in a prefabricated apartment from the time of the Soviet Union. The six-story building has been hit several times by artillery, almost all of its neighbors have left. Iryna stayed. "Where to go? To run away, you need at least a car and some savings," explains the pensioner. "Most of the elderly people here do not find it easy to leave. Besides, if no one is here anymore, looters will surely come."

Ukraine: How winter turns into a weapon of war
Kiev: The apartments have been destroyed by the bombings, but also the electricity and heating plants have gone out of order

Iryna invested the last money she had to make new windows, because the old ones were broken by the pressure of the explosions. In addition, she has hung thick blankets on the windows, to prevent the extreme cold from entering. The central heating of the building block was also destroyed by the attacks of the last few months. During the fall, volunteers came and brought Iryna an electric heater to get her through the winter months. She knows them thanks, but it is often cold in her house.

Russia has been ramping up attacks against Ukraine's energy infrastructure for weeks now, and blackouts are part of the day's events. "We just spent two days without electricity," says the pensioner. In such situations, there is nothing left to do but dress thick and use up the last gas reserves to make hot tea.

The elderly do not leave their homes

All along the front, the elderly are at great risk from falling temperatures in the coming weeks. Even if they have other family members who live in regions where there is no war or abroad, many of them do not want to leave the environment where they are used to living. Oxana Melnyks' mother lived until a few days ago in a village on the other side of the front line, in those parts of Eastern Ukraine that have been occupied by the Russians. Oxana tried for months to convince him to leave the village. She warned her mother of the fighting that was getting fiercer and of the coming winter. But the seventy-year-old was stubborn. "She remembered that she would somehow manage to survive, that everything would end somehow," says Oxana. "But we all know it won't end so easily."

Finally she got the courage and got into the Lada car, a car she has been using for 40 years. Together with an acquaintance, she crossed the destroyed roads of the only corridor that connects the territories controlled by the Ukrainians and those occupied by the Russians. When he arrived at his mother's place, he managed to convince her to pack her bags. "I remained explaining to her that her life is in danger. What is more valuable than life? Neither the house, nor the car, nor anything else, whatever it may be. Only life has value in the end at all.”

Ukraine: How winter turns into a weapon of war
Irpin, people cook outside in the frost

Safety in Saporishshja – and warmth

Along the way, the women got stuck in the mud many times, stopped at dozens of Ukrainian and Russian checkpoints, and the car had an engine damage. But in the end they managed to get to a humanitarian center in Zaporizhia, the capital of Ukraine's eastern region, set up to help refugees from Russian-occupied territories.

For women, this center is the first point where they felt safe after many days, and the first place where they could finally warm up. Here in Saporishshja, Oxana says, they didn't want to believe at first that Russia uses winter on purpose to fight the civilian population. But that is exactly what is happening now. "I pray to God to give them a reason to stop," she sighs. "Leave in peace. Just leave our country, so that more people don't die."

Women do not know what will happen to them next. At first they want to go to Odesa. Oxana has an apartment there. There is not much security there, because like many other places, Odesa has become the target of air attacks. But at least the winter months are not so cold in the Black Sea port city./ DW

Galeria fotografike (
)


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×