First the missiles, then the cold: this is how people suffer in the destroyed village of Novoselivka Russian fighter jets provoke NATO++ Ukrainian general speculates on the end of the war

Debris litters the road on which Alberto Flores Cortez drives his van through the village of Novoselivka in northern Ukraine. The houses of about 800 residents lined the road before the Russian attack on Ukraine on February 24. Now the view falls on sooty ruins and rubble. No one moves in the village street. The war seems to have buried all life in the Ukrainian village not far from the town of Chernihiv and the Ukrainian border with Belarus and Russia.

But appearances are deceiving. The Ukrainian with Bolivian roots takes his foot off the gas. The residents of Novoselivka appear around a bend. They line up in front of a house. It survived the shelling relatively unscathed. The house belongs to the village seamstress Oksana Dehtiarowa. She distributes the relief supplies that Cortez and his team bring from Kiev, about 140 kilometers away, to the liberated cities in northern Ukraine.

A procession of villagers clad in woolen caps and winter coats approaches the open gate to the Dehtiarowa compound.

Cortez and his helpers get out and carry their boxes of groceries, blankets, and warm clothes into the dressmaker’s yard. They hand over loaves of bread and bags of hygiene items to the villagers. A few older people found it difficult to put one step in front of the next in line. They slowly tilt forward until it is their turn. The boxes of bread were quickly empty. But the queue at the gate is not getting any shorter.

A contribution to the national defense

Cortez is a martial artist. His broad shoulders stand out under a yellow safety vest. The 37-year-old talks about his participation in international competitions and a new studio he planned to open in Kiev earlier this year. Then came the war. Cortez single-handedly drove food along the front line to a besieged village.

He calls it his contribution to the defense of the country. Instead of going to the martial arts studio, the athlete put his savings into an aid organization and called it “Esperanza”. That means “hope” in Spanish. But the hungry villagers don’t get enough confidence with the empty boxes of bread.

Novoselivka is not far from the three-country border with Belarus and Russia. After the February raid, the Russian soldiers took up residence in the woods around the village. They shelled the village until the Russian army withdrew from northern Ukraine in April. Those who stayed remained in the basement for weeks.

Older residents in particular refused to flee. The rural people have little savings. They own houses and gardens. Everything necessary for survival grows on the beds. They have worked hard for this all their lives.

In April, the Russian army abandoned its plan to first take Chernihiv and the surrounding region and then advance on Kiev. The thunder over the earth gave way to silence with spring. But when the villagers left their cellars, instead of returning to their homes, a nightmare awaited them. Their belongings were burned or buried under rubble. Ammunition was left in the gardens. The army disposed of the explosives. But there was no time to plant anything for the winter.

Together with the authorities, the helpers of “Esperanza” have set up a container village for the homeless residents. It opened in August. Poland contributed money to finance the project. However, some residents preferred to camp on their properties. A piece of cloth over your head was enough until the autumn cold crept among the ruins in September.

The elderly are particularly hard hit

While the helpers shop in Chernihiv, Cortez directs them to the helpers’ pantry in the village tailor’s house. Dehtiareowa keeps her hat and felt winter boots on for the trip. The cold seeps through shattered windows into every crevice. The wallpaper wrinkles from the moisture. The seamstress tells how the old people in the village in particular get sunken cheeks. Many villagers would have spent their savings on new windows or roofs so they wouldn’t have to freeze in the winter. Dehtiarowa says:

Some neighbors lived on just a handful of buckwheat. Cortez shakes his head. Just a few months ago, donated clothes and food would have been piled up to the ceiling in the studio. Now the boxes barely reach the waist of the two helpers.

Inflation is galloping away in Ukraine. It is currently 30 percent. The helpers have to spend more money on everything they want to give out. Their revenues dwindle as prices rise. Donors in Ukraine, but also in Europe, keep their money together. Your contributions are barely enough to satisfy the hunger in Novoselivka.

Nothing but scorched earth

Since October, Russia has been attacking the Ukrainian electricity grid and power stations. A winter without electricity and heating is just around the corner. Every village liberated from the army in the east and south of the country resembles Novoselivka. In the area around the now liberated city of Kherson in the south of Ukraine, the fighting lasted longer and more intensely than in the north of the country. Ukraine is reclaiming the scorched earth every day. There are people whose survival in the ruins and bunkers so close to winter depends on quick help. Every day counts.

The heating in the container village for the bombed villagers of Novoselivka is connected to the electricity grid. No one knows how long electricity will continue to flow in the village, at least for a few hours a day, or whether darkness and cold will soon reign indefinitely. According to unconfirmed media reports, civil defense in Kiev recommended evacuating the city of three million in the event of a complete blackout. No one in the village is talking about contingency plans for Novoselivka.

70-year-old Nadiia Shkliarewska tells how she sits in her container in the dark by candlelight. She puts on a cardigan when she is cold. She just seems to endure the daily blackouts and the cold that then spreads through the property. But maybe the older woman is too tired to worry about anything else.

The Novoselivska village chief, Volodymyr Shelupets, wears jeans and a parka. He sits in the dark office of City Hall with a flashlight in the late afternoon. Shelupets discusses with colleagues his lack of opportunity in a country sinking into darkness. His face looks chalk white in the dim light of the lamp. The mayor admits that he does not know how to get his municipality through the winter:

The Russians would have destroyed the gas station, supermarkets and all businesses. People lost their employers and with it their income. In the war year, the municipality lacks income from taxes. Your leeway is limited to asking for help.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is now promising the people of the Kherson region squads of reconstruction workers and electricians. They need to repair power lines. There is hardly time left before it freezes in Kherson. The people of Novoselivka will continue to wait for government help to restore their homes if existing troops are sent south.

There is now scorched earth in the north, east and south of Ukraine. She will soon disappear under a white layer of ice and snow. (aargauerzeitung.ch)