The Resistance of the Residents of Kharkiv, the City Under Daily Bombardment: “The Most Horrifying Thing I

The publication describes a terrifying episode that became almost a normality, after the start of the war, started by Russia. As Liliana prepared to open the cafe where she works, a Russian bomb fell nearby. It caused a loud explosion.

“I can’t put into words what I felt, it was terrifying,” says the 20-year-old. She was not injured, but the yard where the bomb fell was destroyed, and a man riding a bicycle nearby was killed, according to city officials.

A day later, the cafe was opened again. It was a new day, in a city that is constantly bombed, being among the most destroyed since the beginning of the Russian invasion – February 2022.

And despite growing fears that Russia will launch a new offensive to capture the city, those who remain in the city are trying to build a life in the chaos.

Although attacks by Russian forces have destroyed all three major power plants, residents continue to live and work with only a few, often unpredictable, hours of electricity each day.

Although more than 100 schools have been damaged or destroyed, classes continue, deep underground in subway stations.

And while dozens of fire and paramedic stations have been blown up, putting emergency responders at risk on a daily basis, emergency services are still trying to do their jobs.

When a missile hits, in three to four hours, all the windows are cleared, all the central roads are cleared. Until morning, it seems that nothing happened and there were no explosions.

Andrii Dronov, Deputy Chief of the Kharkiv Fire Department, 39 years old:

But as the attacks intensify, there are real questions about how long Kharkiv, 25 miles from the Russian border, can hold out without more robust air defenses, the NYT notes.

Since March, Russia has bombarded Kharkiv for the first time with one of the deadliest weapons in its arsenal: powerful guided bombs, known as glide bombs, launched from warplanes that blast hundreds of kilograms of explosives into the air in a single blast .

“It’s a strategy to intimidate people, a strategy to make people leave their homes, to make people evacuate,” Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said during a recent interview in a secret location as his office is a target. “It’s about destroying the city itself,” he adds

Since January, Ukrainian officials said, more rockets have hit Kharkiv, home to 1.3 million people, than at any time in the early months of the war. Ukrainian authorities have ordered the mandatory evacuation of villages east of the city as violence along the border escalates.

Why Moscow wants to conquer Kharkiv

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last week became the most senior Kremlin official to signal that Moscow plans to seize Kharkiv. According to him, the Ukrainian city “plays an important role” in President Vladimir Putin’s declared desire to create a “sanitary zone” along the Russian border. Military analysts noted a significant increase in military activity in the area.

It remains unknown whether Russia is seriously considering an attack from the north. For the city’s residents, the speculation only adds to the anxiety of living under daily bombardment.

On Monday, residents of Kharkiv watched as Russia hit the city’s main television tower in broad daylight with a missile. But the main cause for alarm these days is gliding bombs, large bombs that Moscow has in abundance.

At least 15 guided bombs have targeted Kharkiv in the past three weeks, Ukrainian officials said.

“Nobody knows if they’ll see the morning”

Meanwhile, the residents try to maintain a sense of order to deal with the chaos and uncertainty of war. The crater in the courtyard of the young Korneva’s cafe, for example, was filled and the broken windows were boarded up, while the trees affected by the explosion were cut down and a playground was repaired. She’s making espresso again, though for fewer customers.

“No one knows if they will see the morning again. But despite everything that is happening, we live, work and love our city very much,” said the mayor in a discussion with journalists from the New York Times, who traveled through the city last week with paramedics and firefighters, observing everyday life.

There is no simple way to explain what it is like to live with the threat of death every day, when a missile fired from Russia can hit anywhere in the city in less than a minute, the publication notes.

“Kharkov is invincible, although the people are visibly exhausted”

There is no exodus from Kharkov like the one in the first weeks of the war, when artillery boomed day and night and the population, two million before the war, had dwindled to 300,000. After Russians were driven from most of Kharkiv region during Kiev’s counteroffensive in the fall of 2022, more than a million people have returned, local officials say.

“I felt very homesick,” said Anna Ivanova, 19, a student who fled to Finland but returned after the Russians were driven out. “Here, I had my plans, dreams and aspirations,” says the young woman.

Recently, a rocket crashed into her mother’s friend’s house. Instead of running away, she moved in with her mother and they have no plans to leave. “I will use a well-used phrase. Kharkiv is unbeatable, although the people are visibly exhausted,” said Ms Ivanova.

Amil Nasirov, 29, the lead singer of a popular band called Kurgan & Agregat, says “it’s terrifying to live, to enjoy life.” You hear the explosions at night, then you look at what was hit in the daylight. “And you think it’s close, not far from me, about 700-800 meters,” he said. “And you think: Wow, that’s crazy.”

“The scariest thing is that people get used to it,” says Nasirov. “Bombings starting from 11 pm to 1 am. What is this? And why should we get used to it?”.

The worst damage was left in the Saltivka district in the northeast, where the front line was briefly established in the early days of the war. The destroyed apartment blocks are evidence of the devastation that Russian ground forces caused before they withdrew.

But almost no corner of Kharkiv was spared from the effects of the war. Dina Chmuzh, a local artist, paints the words of Ukrainian poets past and present on the wooden boards that now cover so many windows destroyed by explosions. She compared the boards to a kind of armor. “The city is trying to protect itself,” she said.

Knowing the history of the city of Kharkiv could strengthen the population’s resistance, the artist believes. “Even when you feel like you can’t take it anymore, you can draw your strength endlessly, even through this pain,” she said.

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