The difference between life and death can be in a small detail. Oleksandr, 56, tells the story from a small park in the Ukrainian town of Vilniansk: on June 29, in the early afternoon, he was sitting on a bench by the green. He fancied going to a meat skewer shop on the other side of the road that runs through the city. Temperatures exceed 30 degrees during the day in Ukraine. Oleksandr noticed a neighbour who had bought a cold drink to drink on another bench. In this heat, meat no longer seemed so appetising to him; he changed his mind. He got up and went to look for his wife. A moment later, a Russian missile blew up the skewer shop. Among the bodies on the grass was that of the man who was drinking in the heat. “Until recently, it still smelled like a corpse,” says Oleksandr from the very place where he could have lost his life. Seven people died – three men, one woman and three children. It was one of 381 attacks, including missiles, drones and artillery shells, that hit Zaporizhia province in the east of the country, where this town is located, on June 29. It is not the highest number in a single day.
Oleksandr – like the others mentioned in this article, who prefers to keep his surname confidential for safety reasons – is a soldier with light eyes, blue tattoos between his knuckles and arms and a chain around his neck. “I wasn’t afraid at the front,” he admits, “but I am here.” He says that when the alarms go off, sometimes no one is seen outside the house. He also says that the fear in Vilniansk (14,800 inhabitants before the invasion) is such that he has seen some of the street vendors crouch down at the loud sound. After the impact of one of the missiles, Oleksandr felt as if a stone had been thrown at him. “It was a piece that came after the explosion and hit me in the stomach, it burned a little, but it’s nothing,” he says. Ten days later, Moscow again aimed at the town and fired. It reduced a company on the left side of the entrance to the city to rubble. This time, two people were injured.
No civilian is taught to be brave. The attitude of Ukrainians after more than 870 days of Russian invasion is not about that. Most are afraid of dying, but they have incorporated that fear into their daily lives. And living that normality despite everything is, for many of those interviewed, resistance. This is what Oresa, 58, believes. She works cleaning at the school behind the train tracks, behind the premises hit on June 29. She heard the explosions. “I was so scared,” says this small and nervous woman, “that I thought it was all over.” She was worried about her grandchildren and her children. It is for them that she has not yet left Vilniansk. “We are afraid, yes,” says Oresa, with her shopping in her hands, “but life goes on and we have nowhere to go.”
Just 20 metres away, crossing the road that runs through the town, wall to wall with the shop reduced to ashes, Tatiana, 40, is placing products in a shop on the ground floor of a badly damaged mustard-coloured building. 15 minutes before the attack, she had gone home. “We are used to hearing things like that, but it was so strong,” she says, her eyes glazed over. She called her colleagues after the first bullet. “They told me everything was burning,” she continues. She called them again after the second impact, but they did not answer, they had taken cover. Among the victims are two clients and the grandson of a friend of Tatiana. She admits that she is not well.
―How do you get over it?
―I come to work, I support my colleagues and we joke around. It’s for mental health.
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
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There is no shortage of humour among the workers of a real estate agency located on the first floor of an eight-storey building in the city of Dnipro (population around one million), which was torn open by a Russian missile on 28 June, the day before the massacre in Vilniusk. Three people died under the rubble. The image is devastating, like that of a bear’s claw. The interior of some of the apartments, the guts of the building, has been exposed. It is almost obscene to look at. Lana is 53 years old and worked in the offices. She has short hair and is sitting in one of the chairs that have been taken from the building. “I am afraid because you never know when another missile will fall, because it may be your last minute.” It is a fear that changes and worsens, says Lana, after the first time someone she knows dies. That is what happened to her.
The United Nations office for Ukraine has chosen a photograph of this building for the cover of its June report. In the report, the UN puts the number of civilians killed during the past month across the country at 146, the second most lethal in 2024 after May. The sad section in which June does have the highest mark is that of minors who lost their lives, eight. This section of the UN has recorded the deaths of 11,284 civilians since Russia began the large-scale invasion in February 2022. In the footnotes it clarifies that the number could be much higher due to the uncounted victims in occupied areas.
Denis, 44, lively and cheerful, describes what happened in the Dnipro building in English: “Fucking hell”. That “fucking hell” has the floor covered with pieces of fallen false ceiling; the windows are out of place, some still hanging on the frame. It is the portrait of an earthquake. The colleagues from the real estate agency are busy removing the salvageable material; the chairs, the furniture that was not crushed. In several small rooms they accumulate computers, keyboards and units. “This will cost a lot, but now is not the time…”, says Denis without stopping either in his words or in his steps. Of all that survived, there is one thing that they cherish and give to the journalist as a joke. It is a glass jar of a kilo and a half full of tomatoes. It comes from far away and it resisted. Oleksandr, 37 years old, takes the lead. “There is frustration,” he says, “but we are alive, that is the important thing.” And that is even though some of them were caught smoking a cigarette at the entrance of the building when the missile passed through its structure. “Take a photo of us all next to the building,” asks Oleksandr. “This is our resistance.” So be it.
On July 3, Moscow launched a new offensive on Dnipro, the country’s fourth-largest city, with cruise missiles and drones. The defenses repelled almost everything, but they could not prevent the attack from hitting the Chechelivskii district, on the right bank of the Dnieper River. Eight people lost their lives. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video on his social networks in which a young woman recorded the bombing while taking shelter. A few meters from the impact shown in this recording is the Appolo shopping center. It suffered the attack along with nearby kindergartens and schools. A team of workers is repairing the damage at a good speed, although the store still has many of its exterior windows boarded up.
Maria, 25, was working that day at home, about five minutes away. “I first heard the Shahed [drones de fabricación iraní] “I went into the hallway,” she says. It is recommended to stay between two walls in case of a possible air attack. “Then the missiles came,” she continues. Maria has returned to the shopping centre. “It is scary, yes,” she explains with a resignation that she tones down with laughter, “but it is our life now.” This is not the first time that Russia has used its ammunition against this district, nor the first time that it has hit the Appolo. “We continue to go to restaurants, to supermarkets, to have a coffee… It is a habit.” She does not hide her fear. Olena, 35, leaves the department store with her mother. It was she who, from home, upon hearing the roar, warned her, as well as the rest of the family, of what was happening. Olena says that phrase that is heard so often among Ukrainians. “Every day can be the last, another missile can always fall.” But they continue forward. “It is a way of fighting back, of course,” says Olena and her mother nods. “We live in the moment.”
During the interviews in the various towns, air raid warnings were sounded in case of a possible attack. No one wanted to stop talking.
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