The past two days have been fairly quiet in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. But this Tuesday, the sound of the Ukrainian cannon like that of the Russian artillery resounded again.
Not enough to discourage the three volunteers, Nazar, Alexiï and Oleg.
“Our main objective is to feed children and the elderly, they need it most. Unfortunately, at the moment people don’t have any money or jobs, many of them can’t even get to a supermarket,” says 24-year-old Nazar Tishchenko.
Alexiï, 23 years old, blue eyes and a small lock on a shaved head. He was the one who had the idea of the deliveries. For two years he delivered bread to Kharkiv and the Donbass, then he was a mechanic. When the war broke out, he became a bread delivery man again. Then his business closed. So he started to deliver himself. “But I couldn’t do it alone, so I asked Nazar to help me,” the young man said.
A city under fire from Russian rockets
The northern and eastern districts of Kharkiv – almost a million and a half inhabitants before the war – are almost daily the target of Russian rockets. The strikes are random, spaced out, at any time of day or night, sometimes deadly.
One day, during a bombardment, “all the shelters were closed,” says Nazar. “So we couldn’t hide. We lay down on the ground and we protected civilians to save them,” he said.
To apprehend the fear and mask the noises of the fighting, the speakers of the small car used to deliver the aid, made techno music resound in the streets of the city.
“When you hear missile strikes nearby, it oppresses you, but when they are muted by the music, you feel good,” says Oleg, 21.
There is no overall toll of civilian victims of Russian aggression against Ukraine. In Mariupol alone, the Ukrainian authorities speak of 20,000 dead, due to the fighting but also to the lack of food, water and electricity.
Ukrainian investigators have identified “more than 8,000 cases” of alleged war crimes since the start of the Russian invasion, Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said Thursday. Ten Russian soldiers have been indicted for alleged war crimes in Boucha, near kyiv, and will be wanted, according to the same source.