Status: 03/03/2022 10:31 a.m
Many Ukrainians have to spend days in basements because of the Russian attacks. They lack water, food, electricity or gas. 67-year-old Nina reports on her dramatic experiences.
Nina is struggling to hold back tears as she recounts what she went through in her hometown in eastern Ukraine. Nina comes from Wolnowacha. The place is about 60 kilometers south of Donetsk. Reports keep coming from the region that the residents are struggling to survive.
I spent six days in a chair in the basement. I stayed there and sat there during the day. We didn’t know where to get water, what to eat.
In the past few days they had been shot at so hard that they couldn’t even look out of the hiding place:
I haven’t showered, even washed my face, brushed my teeth for six days. I was covered in dust and dirt.
Nina and some others sought shelter from bombs and shelling in the basement. She reports that very small children were there. As in most places in Ukraine, the cellars are not developed. It’s cold, many have to sleep on bare earth.
People don’t get any help at all. There is no water, no food, no electricity, no gas, there is nothing. Also no means to warn people of bombs or air raids.
“We usually sleep in the hallway” Anna, resident of Kharkiv
Morning magazine, March 3, 2022
Surrounded and under fire
A little more than 20,000 people lived in Wolnowacha. The city is surrounded by Russian troops and is under constant fire, says Nina.
The purest horror is spreading in our city at the moment. We were bombed from the air, shot at with multiple rocket launchers, with mortars, from tanks.
Any weapon there is will be used against the city:
They wiped them out, leveled them to the ground. Only a ghost town remains.
“15 minutes to get out of town”
Nina managed to escape. She still can’t believe her luck in making it out alive. In a few days she will be 67.
I’ve lived in Wolnowacha all my life, for the escape I could just throw in my bag a pair of underwear and a sports suit, and papers. And with that I ran away. We had 15 minutes to get out of town.
In that time they would have had to walk about a kilometer to get the car out of the garage and drive out of town.
40,000 people in the midst of a disaster
In the Donbass, about 40,000 people live in the midst of a humanitarian catastrophe. The Ukrainian side says Russian troops did not allow a corridor to bring out the population.
Instead, Russia accuses the Ukrainians of not agreeing to the corridor. The Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine, Irina Vereshuk, urgently appealed to the international aid organizations to help.
“They just lay there, dead”
Nina reports that the Ukrainian soldiers supported the residents as best they could.
When we ran past the central square to escape, there they were, ten of our boys who had defended the city. They just lay there, dead. The bodies weren’t even carried away.
Massive attacks continue
The war in Ukraine is now in its eighth day. The country is under massive attack from Russia. Several large cities, but also small towns and settlements are bombarded from the air and with artillery. Tanks roll into villages. Hospitals, administrations, infrastructure and residential areas are destroyed.
According to the UN, more than 220 civilians have been killed and 525 injured in Ukraine. More than a million have fled the country.
According to the Ukrainian disaster service, 400 people were brought to safety from Volnowakha. The world must find out what the Russians have done to their city, and the world must finally stop Putin, says Nina. Talks between Ukraine and Russia are scheduled to take place today, the second round. It remains unclear whether a ceasefire can be achieved.
conflicting parties as a source
Information on the course of the war, shelling and casualties provided by official bodies of the Russian and Ukrainian conflict parties cannot be directly checked by an independent body in the current situation.
Ukraine War: Update – Dramatic Situation in the East
Palina Milling, WDR, 03/03/2022 06:39 a.m