Residents of a block of buildings hit by Russian shells in Saltivka, a popular suburb north-east of Kharkiv, gather around prosecutors from the Ukrainian prosecutor’s office who have come to examine the building and try to determine whether it is “a crime of war” or not. Many hope in vain that they will be given answers on compensation. This is not the time, but the magistrates take note of everything, even the enormous damage.
They go over each floor of the building with their occupants. 70-year-old Mykola Tymchenko’s apartment is a total ruin. The explosion following a Russian strike and the ensuing fire devastated the accommodation. Furniture, mattresses, decorations, everything was reduced to ashes. “Here was the kitchen, here the bathroom, here the toilets…”, he explains, sorry. “What do you want me to feel?” I lost my wife before New Years. Now I have lost my apartment. It took years to pay for it, and in an instant…” he laments.
At the top of the building, the magistrates continue their work, inspecting, near a gaping hole in a wall, the remains of a projectile. “We cannot yet clearly establish whether we were targeting civilians or whether it was a shooting error”, comments Oleksandr Glebov, 33, one of the magistrates of the Kharkiv prosecutor’s office, with reserve, while hundreds projectiles have fallen on the neighborhood since the start of the Russian invasion. During their visit, the magistrates follow a procedure: “We ask each victim the same question: ‘Were there military objectives near your home?’ “, he explains.