FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
KHARKIV (UKRAINE) – We begin this report by reporting an impression noted already in the first hours of our arrival in the city six days ago and then confirmed with field work: this time too, American weapons, especially long-range missiles, prevented massacres and greater destruction. But the turning point has arrived when Joe Biden allowed launch pads and stations on Russian territory to be hit.
Everyone here says it, from the mayor, to the police patrol in front of one of the numerous universities, to the employees of the bombed companies, up to the mothers who accompany their children to the municipal zoo, where in the spring of two years ago bears, hippos and giraffes seemed destined to die in front of the steamroller of the Russians stationed in the northern districts. “May was hell, but since the beginning of June we’ve been back to life”, is the most common comment. «You don’t need to be a great expert in military matters. It’s one thing to hit Russian missiles and drones when they are already in the air and are gliding close to their targets on our territory: a difficult, expensive operation and above all destined for limited success, given that the Russians simultaneously fire dozens of projectiles of various types . And another is to annihilate the launch bases and depots in Russia. A few American missile attacks were enough to force the Russians away from the front line. Result: in Kharkiv now the nights and days are almost calm again”, explained two days ago Maxim Bilovsov, a 37-year-old intelligence officer met in the park near the town hall.
But the story of Kharkiv is much more than bombings and military strategies. Putin wanted to conquer it from the very first days of the war. We visited it at the end of March 2022 when its almost two million inhabitants were reduced to less than 300 thousand desperate people, hidden in the subway, rendered sleepless by the roar of the fighting, with the buildings in neighborhoods like Saltivka reduced to piles of rubble and unsafe cornices. But already in October of the same year the Ukrainians had managed to push the enemy back across the international border into the Belgorod area, which is only about thirty kilometers north of the urban area.
Since then Kharkiv, although wounded, painful, impoverishedhad gradually started to live again. Considered the true cultural and scientific center of Ukraine (it is no coincidence that the Soviets wanted it as their capital for a few years after they took power), its museums, theaters and universities had remained closed for security reasons. Last January it once again had one million and 300 thousand inhabitants. However, the situation had worsened again at the end of April, when Putin himself declared that he wanted to send troops to create a «buffer zone» right in front of Kharkiv. The nightmare of bombs reappeared in the city, which also started falling again on civilian areas, while the Russians broke through the front line with the prospect that in reality they would try to occupy everything possible if the Ukrainians had not resisted.
«The howls of the sirens have started to echo again, up to twenty times a day. People have fled to shelters, almost all my friends and acquaintances have fled to Dnipro and Lviv. I picked up my 8-year-old daughter Kira and we set off in the car. Our abandoned apartments were taken by those who had evacuated the villages just occupied by the Russians,” says Anastasia Sabanova, who is 28 years old and works for a real estate agency. The most serious moments were on May 19th, when a missile hit a small wellness center killing 6 people.
On May 23, three missiles hit Factor-Druk, which is the largest printing plant in the country. “Seven of our workers have lost their lives and 20 are injured,” 39-year-old Andrii Kalanchuk, who manages the department most devastated by the explosion, tells us. showing the remains of thousands of charred books. Two days later three missiles hit the Epicenter department store: 20 dead and over 60 injured. Then, the turning point: for two weeks the Russian attacks have become less frequent, the sirens still sound, but almost always they do not follow the explosions. Electricity distribution has also become more regular. There is no certainty about tomorrow, but even today there were no victims.
