It is not so easy to get in touch with the man in the glass case. The eye is distant. The shock and anxiety are still there. – You don’t understand anything. Everything falls on you, but you feel nothing. You just stiffen up. Dust, glass, everything lands on you, but you don’t feel anything, he says. Six neighbors died here that day. Even he probably saved his life because he was on his way to the bathroom. – Afterwards I walked around like a robot. I spoke to the other neighbors who survived and we just want to forget this bad memory. Can collapse It is not safe to climb the rickety concrete stairs to the third floor of the block in Mykolajiv. It is only just that this part of the building hangs together. We look into a flat where people have been killed, but we are told that they do not want to talk to us. They need peace. A young person told news that he recently sold this car to someone who lives in this house. The ascent to Andrej is straight ahead to the right. At least six people were killed there. Photo: Andras D.Hajdu / Andras D.Hajdu It was probably an S-300 missile. It is actually an anti-aircraft missile, but Russian forces have started using them against national targets because they lack missiles. Neighboring houses have also been damaged. Not a pane of glass in the area is intact. This is how it looks in the apartment next door to Andrej. Several were killed in the missile attack. Photo: Andras D.Hajdu / Andras D.Hajdu The attack on the city has calmed down Mykolajiv is a port city along the Black Sea with about half a million inhabitants. For a long time the city was close to the front towards Kherson. A few weeks ago, Ukrainian artillery positions were only a mile outside the city limits. Russian artillery bombarded the city every night. That made it very dangerous to live here, unless you had a well-reinforced concrete basement to sleep in. In addition, large quantities of missiles were fired at the city. A woman next door is going shopping. Life goes on even if the neighborhood is in ruins. Children were playing near where the missile hit. A few roses on a bench for the slain. In July, five people waiting for the bus were killed by artillery fire. The authorities therefore started building bus shelters in concrete. Now everyone hopes that it will no longer be necessary to wait for the bus in a shelter. On 11 November, the Russian forces began to withdraw. The neighboring city of Kherson, which is about 9 miles from Mykolaiv, was liberated. As if by magic, Mykolajiv began to come back to life. There are more people in the streets and in restaurants and shops. Now it is Kherson that is the “front town” and the main target for the Russian artillery. And the tracks around the city are clear. The landscape is full of destroyed military vehicles and blind pedestrians. The farmer has a big job ahead of him. Farmer Stepan Pivovortsjuk shows off his seed storage. The roof is destroyed and the ground full of mines. The remains of a cow that have not yet been cleared away. There were also many dead soldiers here, but they have been taken care of. Craters in the road by the village of Liubomyrivka. Before the war, 500 people lived here. After the war, 200 have returned, but most commute because their homes need major repairs. In the villages between Mykolayiv and Kherson, people are starting to return. Here, for a while, there were such fierce battles that it was not livable for any human or animal. But it will take a long time before life resembles something normal. According to the Ukrainian defense, 5 million hectares of land have been mined in Ukraine. Clearing everything will take many years. Calm the nerves Back in the block in Mykolayiv, Andrej’s friend, Tatiana, comes by. She lives directly across the street and has a few bottles of lager in a carrier bag and some food with her. It’s good to have a hug when the nerves are frayed. Her friend Tatiana heard the bang and is grateful that Andrej is still alive. Photo: Andras D.Hajdu / Andras D.Hajdu – I think Andrej needs something to calm his nerves, she says and smiles nervously. Hands shaking. It is not easy to sleep when a rocket can come at any time and tear you out of your sleep. – I grew up with several of those killed. If the rocket had hit a few meters to the side, I might have been dead and the others alive. No one is safe in Ukraine. The tears come and Tatiana gets a long and warm hug from Andrej. Some veins arrive with tools and begin to repair the ruined pane of glass. The neighbors discuss what the target could be. Maybe a building where there were Ukrainian soldiers? The Russian missiles are imprecise. A damaged Jesus figure floats in the wind and greets the villagers who are returning to their destroyed homes. Photo: Andras D.Hajdu / news Andrej says that everyone in Mykolayiv has lost someone they love. Every day they thank God that they survived the brutal acts of war in Kherson county. Russia cannot force Ukraine to its knees, Andrej asserts. – No matter how many bombs they want to send, how many homes they want to destroy and how many of us they want to kill, they will not break us. We want to win.
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Only luck that he survived – Urix
