Kiev, Ukraine – Thousands of people have fled the northern suburbs of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, fleeing towns and villages attacked by Russian forces across the region. Many of them come from the city of Chernihiv, with gloomy faces and crushing stories.
They have been arriving in steady throngs at Kiev Central Station for the past few days, carrying bags and children, their eyes hollow and tense.
“The city is under fire all the time,” said Iryna Shepetova, 35, as she hugged one of her children after sleeping on a couch in the station for the night. “The mayor told us that you are responsible for your own life.”
She escaped from the city with her three children and her mother in one of the last minibuses last week as Russian troops approached.
Chernihiv guards the left bank of the Dnieper River and has been a target for Russian troops advancing towards Kiev since the start of the war five weeks ago. Prevented from seizing control of Chernihiv, Russian units surrounded it and shelled it with air strikes and artillery fire, while a second battalion group moved in to encircle it from the south.
On Tuesday, during negotiations in Istanbul to end the war, the Russians said they would ease their bombing of Chernihiv, but their positions around it have already been so fortified and the city itself so battered that the offer barely amounted to a concession against Chernihiv. all.
“They purposely bombed schools,” said Vera Kaydash, 67, a retired physician. “There were queues for bread and water and they shot at the waiting people.” She said she knew two people who had been killed in a row attack outside a supermarket.
Water and electricity were out, gas only worked on one side of the city, and telephone and internet services were down, she said. At her former hospital, the damage had rendered the X-ray and dialysis departments useless, she said. “They destroyed them in such a way that we couldn’t replace them until after the war.”
“I’ve never seen such cynical behavior in my life,” she said.
So when the mayor of the city, Vladyslav Astroshenko, urged everyone to get out and volunteers from a private bus company organized minibuses, dozens of people decided to take the risk. Cars trying to escape came under repeated fire and there was no guarantee of safe passage for civilians, but the situation in the city became increasingly precarious.
“A large number of cars came under fire and many people died,” said Dr. Kaydash, Mikhail, 68, who was accompanying his wife and sister. He said he was surprised they got through. “We were lucky, it was quiet.”
They made a tortuous six-hour journey on back roads through woods and fields dodging Russian positions, listening to the pounding tank and mortar fire not far away.
Ms. Shepetova left her husband behind because, she said, men between the ages of 18 and 60 were not allowed to board the buses. dr. Kaydash left behind her daughter and family.
Three days after their escape, Russian planes bombed the only bridge leading out of Chernihiv, cutting off the exit route for tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers still inside. There is another pedestrian bridge over the river, but it has been damaged and exposed to Russian shelling and gunfire, the mayor said.
He asked for help for his besieged city in a video call with journalists last weekend. “We are looking for a way to get 44 seriously injured people out,” he said. “They need to be evacuated urgently.” The injured were mostly military personnel, he said, but also civilians and three children.
More than 200 people had died in attacks on Chernihiv, he said, adding that the destruction was so extensive, “it is now easier to count the buildings that were not damaged.”
Since then, families have continued to trickle out on increasingly dangerous journeys, on foot from the city and brought across the river by volunteers in small boats. Many are so afraid of the prospect of a Russian takeover that they did not want their full names published, but told about their experiences.
One family said they walked and drove through villages for three days before finding a way to cross the river. “We were a group of seven with a child and a grandmother who is disabled,” said Svetlana, 40. “We had to make a huge hook, 50 kilometers long, with him,” she said as she approached her five-year-old son, Dyma. . They loaded their bags onto two bicycles and pushed them along, she said.
People described a chaotic and dangerous situation with shifting front lines as Russian troops tried to encircle the city and Ukrainian troops counterattacked.
“All roads to get out of Chernihiv are being shelled by the Russians,” said Alyona Sukhova, who drove Monday with her husband and 14-year-old daughter Olha from a rural area south of the river. “It was risky,” said her husband, Pavlo Sukhov, who was driving the car. “The Russians had been pushed back a bit, so there was a small window to get out.”
As the fighting raged through the city, ordinary civilians doing their jobs were entangled in incomprehensible shootings.
Two Chernihiv women were working as cooks at a factory in the nearby town of Sevchenkove when it was stormed by Russian troops. “The first day a woman and a man were shot in their car,” said one of the women, Alla, 44. “It was scary going out.” They took shelter in the basement of their hostel and then a full Russian tank fired at the building.
“They were firing tanks at our building,” said the other, Yulia, 55. “Thank God nothing fell on us.” The two women took a ride in someone’s car and fled, but they were now homeless because they couldn’t return to Chernihiv. Alla said her 17-year-old son was trapped there.
War between Russia and Ukraine: important developments
Ongoing peace talks. During peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, Russia promised it would “reduce military activity near Kiev”, and Ukraine said it was ready to declare itself permanently neutral. Still, weeks of further negotiations may be needed to reach an agreement, and Russia appears determined to take more territory in eastern Ukraine.
On a road south of Chernihiv, a mechanic, Vitaliy, 42, was collecting flour from a farm several weeks ago when he encountered a column of Russian tanks and armored personnel carriers approaching from the opposite direction.
“It’s one in a million I’m still alive,” he said, stroking a shattered arm and a bandaged eye at a hospital on Kiev’s left bank. “I have two bullets in my head,” he added, pulling out the hospital’s X-rays on his phone.
Seeing the motorcade, he stopped his car, Vitaly said, and drove off the road, but the Russian troops opened fire on his car, so he ran into the field and lay down.
“There was no cover and then they started shooting at me,” he said. Bullets flew around him and until one shattered his arm and another pierced his eye and lodged in his brain. He remained conscious as the convoy passed and Ukrainian members of the territorial defense rescued him. “I thought the column would just pass,” he said simply.
The evacuees from Chernihiv, dropped off at the main railway station in Kiev, sat exhausted on benches in the vaulted passenger halls, waiting for trains to safer destinations in central or western Ukraine. They expressed relief but also some resentment at those who were unaware of the extent of the war in their city.
“Kiev is relatively safe,” Ms. Shepetova said, looking around. “But there are many armed forces and I would like to see them where they are needed.”
Mr Kaydash called for more international assistance, especially in stopping the Russian airstrikes.
“If Chernihiv falls, the Russians will come to Kiev,” he said. “The Ukrainians are fighting furiously. It would be nice to get some support.”
Mr. Kaydash listed the countries where Russia has taken territory over the past 30 years. “It started in Moldova and Georgia and continued in Ukraine,” he said. “And there is Poland next door. Ukraine may not be the end. It can go on.”