The number of shelling of the occupiers increased in Kharkiv region

Shelling was conducted in the Slobozhan and Kupyan directions.

Russia is constantly attacking the border region.

Over the past day, the Russian occupiers shelled 18 settlements in the Kharkiv region. This was reported by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

“In the Slobozhansk direction, the enemy continues to maintain its troops in the border areas of the Belgorod region,” said the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. “In the Kupyansk direction, the enemy is conducting defense.”

With artillery, the occupiers fired in the Slobozhansk direction in the areas of Veterinarne, Kozacha Lopan, Visoka Yaruga, Strelecha, Krasne, Staritsa, Ohirtseve, Budarki, Chugunivka, Dvorichna and Zapadne settlements.

In the Kupyansk direction, Russian fire was recorded in the territories of the settlements of Kupyansk, Kislivka, Kotlyarivka, Tabaivka, Krokhmalne, Berestov and Druzhelyubivka.

According to the information of the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration Oleg Sinegubov, there have been more strikes in the Kupyan district, in general, there have been constant strikes on the border in the past day.

“The intensity of shelling in the Kupyansk district has increased several times. During the day, the Russians constantly fired artillery at the settlements of the border communities of the district. Fires broke out in houses, farm buildings, warehouses, and there were hits on open territories,” Oleg Sinegubov said.

In addition, shelling was recorded in Vovchansk and Lipetsk communities. Garages were occupied there, facades of buildings were damaged. There were no casualties from the shelling of the previous day.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, reported that the Russian invaders are trying to move in the Kharkiv region. They are also making attempts to attack Donetsk region and gain a foothold in the Luhansk region.

The enemy is shooting along the border.

Russian troops have increased the intensity of shelling several times in the Kupyan district of the Kharkiv region. Yesterday, they constantly fired artillery at populated areas of border communities, which caused fires in houses, farm buildings, warehouses, there are also hits on open territories, said the head of the Kharkiv Regional Military Administration Oleg Sinegubov.

“The border communities of Vovchansk and Lipetsk were also under shelling – garages were burned, facades of private houses were damaged,” he wrote.

According to the Regional Emergency Medical Center, there were no casualties.

In order to call an ambulance or fire brigade in Dvorichnaya, a village of Kupyan district in Kharkiv region, you have to run to them: there has been no communication since March, since the Russian occupation. The border village is still in the line of fire, so it is still impossible to restore the infrastructure here. And if the fire department itself can see where to leave, then with the ambulance, if it is about civil diseases, it will not work like that. However, the neighboring towns of Figolivtsi and Petroivanivtsi are a little envious of such a situation: there is neither an ambulance, nor a doctor, nor a paramedic. They rely only on military medics.

Heat and logistics

The military is also counted on in other situations: they are the only ones who can give a ride to Chuguiv or Kharkiv (the nearest big cities with a whole infrastructure), give a call via Starlink, share fuel or firewood.

Locals are afraid to go for firewood: the forests are full of stretch marks and unexploded shells. Dmytro Stoyanov, head of the communal services department of the Dvorichan Territorial Community, says: “We will be able to sign a contract with a logging company only when we receive a demining certificate. That is, never.” One sapper, according to the Main Department of the State Emergency Service in the Kharkiv region, can work a maximum of 10 m2 per day, regardless of the type of terrain.

Volodymyr Vlasenko, a volunteer of the “Kharkiv with you” charitable foundation, who brings a humanitarian worker to Dvorichna, tells the local residents: “Clean up everything you can reach. Your task now is to survive. Then we will plant a new one.” People say they can’t saw in other people’s yards, “it’s wrong.” Volodymyr asks: “What about those who fled over the ledge?” They nod in silence.

Olya from Figolivka admits that the cost of firewood, which is enough for her for about one and a half months, is approximately equal to her monthly pension (2,900 UAH). He laughs that, they say, on the other hand, there is no way to withdraw the money anyway, there is nowhere to spend it – there are no shops or markets.

There is no gas in the villages either. Halyna Turbaba, the head of the Dvorichan territorial community, says that at the beginning of the invasion, they cut off the gas pipe that ran over the new bridge over Oskil. The pressure began to drop, so the administration and utility workers decided to boil the pipe: so the community on the other side of the river was left with gas. Halyna does not know if there is gas there now, because there is still fighting in that area. On this side, gas was restored for a while, but after the occupiers left, they again cut off the gas pipeline: this time, the one that goes over the water; it is impossible to restore it now.

So that people could somehow warm themselves and cook, the Red Cross brought several vans of peasant stoves for the Kupyan district, says Andriy Sheinin, coordinator of the Kupyan logistics center, a volunteer of the Kharkiv with you fund. The center was created to coordinate humanitarian aid flows. Here, the Red Cross, the Maltese Aid Service, the Peaceful Sky of Kharkiv, international funds ADRA, AICM and others cooperate with Kharkiv with you. These are organizations that have humanitarian aid, but do not have the resources to deliver it. All employees of the center work on a volunteer basis: they receive a hot lunch, food packages and hygiene.

The burzhuykas, which are currently in the logistics center, will be transported to private homes or so-called points of inviolability in a few days. They are arranged in high-rise buildings or infrastructure facilities that can accommodate a large number of people.

There, Andrii says, there are places to stay overnight (the Red Cross donated 300 sets of folding beds, mattresses and beds and another 300 mattresses separately), hot food from the World’s Central Kitchen or volunteer kitchens, stations for charging phones. In some heating points, the military administration installs solid fuel boilers or electric generators, which operate heat guns and heaters.

There are no showers at the points, there are toilets in some places, but they cannot be used in the absence of a central water supply, so the logistics center is now looking for mobile biotoilets and funding for them.

Water and medicine

But the biggest problem is with water.

There is no centralized water supply here now because of hostilities, and well water cannot be used. Maksym Parkhomenko, an employee of the Dvorichanskyi National Park, says that the water here contains too many nitrates, and the hardness is high due to the high content of calcium and magnesium salts and other impurities.

Maxim explains that if the permissible level of calcium salts for drinking water is 4-7 units, and already at 10-12 the water is considered technical, then in some areas of the Dvorichan community this indicator can reach 16-19 units. Such water cannot be used without preliminary treatment, even in technology, due to excessive sedimentation of salts. For humans, it is dangerous due to salt deposits in the joints and kidneys.

But an even bigger problem, the specialist says, is the content of nitrates, which in some places exceeds the permissible norm by 9-10 times. Constant consumption of such water leads to slow poisoning of vital organs, and for children it can become fatal in a very short time. The reason for nitrate pollution is the lack of sewage control and excess organic fertilizers in the fields. In other words, nitrates formed by bacteria from faecal masses seep into the aqueduct.

The wells that local residents make instead of wells, Maksym says, also mostly do not have a proper expert assessment of water quality.

In Kupyansk itself, says Andriy Sheinin, there is a central water supply: there is a powerful generator at the waterworks provided by the Maltese Aid Service and the BF “Kharkiv with you”, and several more generators from the regional military administration. But the village of Lisova Stinka, above Oskol itself, urgently needs a 20-30 kW generator, because the pump needs at least 15-18 kW.

In the basement of an apartment building in the so-called Palestine, the area at the entrance to Dvorichna, a young woman, Svitlana, is trying to wash a blanket in a tiny basin. He says he is afraid to go to the well often: constant shelling.

Her fear is understandable: in the next block, we meet a woman whose house was completely burned down by shelling on the eve of our arrival. A man who worked at a local boiler house was killed nearby. The woman asks volunteers to record a video and send it to her sister in Dnipro to tell her that the house is no longer there, and they will look for an opportunity to move to her. At the end, he cries: “Happy birthday to you, Lenochka, happy birthday, sister.”

In some places, villagers pump water from wells. If there is a generator. A generator is fuel, fuel is money, and there is no income in the villages at all. The salary is charged only to state employees, says Oksana, the nurse-housekeeper of the district hospital. The hospital, of course, is also not working: the premises are broken, most of the employees have left. There are a couple of narrow specialists left, people go to their homes.

The military administration delivered basic sets of medicines to people free of charge, says Andriy Sheinin. The district hospital operates as an outpatient clinic in Kupyansk, its branches are in Kupyansk-Vuzlovy and Kivsharivka. The premises were partially damaged, the family doctors were freezing for a long time, now they finally have a generator from the Maltese. Until November 23, there was also a polyclinic in Kupyansk. But on Wednesday it was gone: destroyed by Russian shelling. The seriously ill or seriously injured are taken to Kharkiv by ambulance. By the way, on November 23, the first aid station was also hit by shelling.

Returning to water: “Kharkiv with you” volunteers deliver bottled water to villages. If in Petroivanivka they refuse water – there are wells there, then in Dvorichnaya they ask for more and more. Katya, another young woman hiding in a basement in Palestine, says that the administration distributed 3-5 liters of water per family a couple of times a week. Halyna Turbaba is surprised: “We don’t have a standard, we bring a barrel to Palestine. People collect as much as they can. There is also a barrel in the center of the village where we pump water from the well.”

We hear different things about how much water is given in different places. There is a feeling that people lost the sense of time and other specific dimensions a long time ago. Life without light, communication, and most importantly, work, turns into simple survival and waiting. In one and the same queue, you can hear “they brought a lot of water” and “who knows when there was already water, 3-5 liters per hand.”

Food and work

The same story with products. Halyna Turbaba scolds the volunteers in a friendly way, saying why did you take the kits to Dvorichna, but we literally delivered food to them yesterday. And indeed, in the basements where we were, people were cooking freshly thawed beef brought the day before by the administration. But Volodymyr Anatoliyovych, receiving the volunteer kits, says: “Oh, thank you, this is the first time we have received this! Few people come to us at all, there are churchmen from Kharkiv, it seems, the Church of Christ, so they brought some cereals and canned goods.

The military administration issues food kits “Good evening, we are from Ukraine”: flour, starch, sugar, canned meat and fish, totaling about 15 kg of products. Such a set is issued for 2-3 people once a month, in plans – once every two weeks.

Andriy says that a spontaneous market has appeared in Kupyansk (the premises of the bazaar are also completely broken and burned), where you can sometimes meet people selling humanitarian aid. As a matter of fact, one of the tasks of the newly created logistics center is to organize the flow of aid so that it does not happen that it does not reach someone, and someone collects it in order to sell it at a high price.

People in the villages want to work and earn, but there is no work. One of the men in Petroivanivka is kindly teased by the neighbors as an Oligarch. He says – “I had my own summer business…”. He smiles slyly. Every summer, the Oligarch grazed other people’s cows. There is no one left to graze: almost all the animals were sold, Kharkiv dealers took them for 6 hryvnias per kilogram of live weight. The oligarch says they were promised 15-20 hryvnias each and cheated.

Olya from Figolivka also sold her two cows: money was urgently needed for medicine and gasoline for the hospital. Someone sold cows to pay for evacuation, someone to buy an electric generator and fuel for it.

In some places, people still keep one or two cows, goats, ducks, chickens or rabbits, but everyone complains that there is practically nothing to feed them. However, they are happy that this year’s harvest was good, so there are a lot of preserves, potatoes, and carrots in the cellars. They say we will hold out, we only know how long.

Children, education and communication

A few children remained in each village. Moms confess in a whisper: the little ones want sweets and books. Olga Ivanivna, a former librarian, says: the library, school, and museum in Dvorichnaya Rossiyana were completely destroyed. And before they broke up, Ukrainian books were set on fire, they threatened to bring in Russian books, but they didn’t have time. There are practically no books in the families themselves.

Seven-year-old Alice from Dvorichny is trying to remember the name of the book she wanted to take from the library. We promise to bring her “Harry Potter”, she looks fascinated and does not seem to understand what we are talking about. We ask: “What do you dream of doing after the war?” – “Travel! Across Ukraine! And I want to see many, many different animals!” He says he wants to go to school because he misses other children and wants to “learn new things.” But Alisa’s ten-year-old brother sulks and says that he doesn’t want to go to school anymore.

 

All half an hour that we stand near the yard with the children, the shelling does not stop. Children, at first glance, do not respond to them. Adults don’t hide either, they say: “What’s the difference?”

There will be no school year in these villages. There are no schools or connections for online classes. In Kupyansk itself, mobile internet appeared a couple of weeks ago (but it regularly disappears during shelling), most villages do not have it. Starlinks are available only in the military, in administrative service centers and in the logistics center. They say that in some places, somewhere on the hills, Kyivstar breaks through, and it is dangerous to run there.

Andrii Sheinin says that even if the communities receive new starlinks, this will not change the situation for education, because there are simply no places where children can be safely collected.

There will be no New Year celebrations either. Foreign foundations also want to give gifts to children for the New Year, and, for example, Kharkiv’s Deer of Saint Nicholas, which delivers thousands of gifts to front-line villages every year. But it is dangerous to gather children in one room, and there are simply no rooms for 40-50 people – they were destroyed by the Russians.

All schools in the district, kindergartens and a boarding school, where displaced people from Donetsk region lived during the occupation, are completely broken or at least have no windows (it is impossible to restore the building).

It is unclear how many children remained in the communities. Volunteers with the military administration are trying to conduct a population census. In particular, when distributing humanitarian aid, passport data, addresses, the number of people in families and the age of children are recorded.

Life under occupation

Galina Turbaba tells how on February 24, in the middle of the night, the village elders started calling her because they woke up from the explosions. In the morning, a meeting was held to decide how to ensure the livelihood of the district.

“One of the first questions was how we will deliver bread to people,” says Galina. — There is a bakery in Dvorichnaya, it still works. But in the very first days, they damaged the bridge over the Nizhnya Dvorichna River and thus cut off the road to Petroivanivka, Kamianka, and Kolodyazny. Fortunately, the river here is not wide, so we loaded the bread into the bucket of the tractor, brought it to the crossing, and the elders from that side accepted it.”

Local pharmacists twice managed to go to Kharkiv alone to get medicine. But soon the fighting began near Shevchenkov and Korobochkin – and communication stopped.

When the occupiers entered Dvorichna, they first said that they were not encroaching on our territorial integrity, says Galina, but only “will help keep order.”

And in May, they started creating their structures and called her as the head of the territorial community with claims: “You don’t let us work, you forbid us to bring humanitarian aid!” “It’s still interesting how I, without a weapon, didn’t give it to them,” says Galina. The occupiers twice drove people to rallies to the administration, incited them to demand pensions and food delivery. “I told them: give them a corridor, then it will be possible to bring them in, but you are shelling all the roads!” The corridor was not given, the head of the territorial community was blamed for the lack of food.

There was no electricity in the community for the whole of April, and before May 9, the power supply was started from Russia – the line built during the Soviet Union was restored. But after our counteroffensive, it was killed, as was the gas.

On May 11, Galina was taken to the basement of the Kupyan district police department. They said: “we will talk and let go”, and they held out for 33 days. Together with her were women with drug addiction, “curfew violators”, the director of the school where the displaced people lived. “They did not torture us, but they threatened us, they said: “Even if you are not a woman, if you are not of that age!” When my relatives were looking for me, they were told: “There is no such person here!” For two weeks they did not know where I was. My mother is 87 years old, she was told that I left on a business trip and have no contact.”

Galina was stubbornly asked: “What are you going to do when we release you?” She said: “I will work, I am the head of the village.” When they let her go, they warned her that she should coordinate all her actions with them. Galina refused: “What are you doing here?” So she was no longer allowed to work. Affairs at that time were managed by the secretary of the village council. Now all collaborators have left for Russia; according to Galina, there are no police officers detained.

When Galina was released, employees of the administration and schools reached out to her with employment records – to resign. While the woman was going to the hospital for injections (being treated after the first sentence), everything was turned upside down in her office and at home and taken away again – this time for 50 days. They said: “You had no right to talk to these people!”

This time, there were 6-8 women in double cells: volunteers, school principals, and again women with drug and alcohol addiction. Galina says that some were tortured with electric current, but she herself was lucky again.

On September 8, a day after the occupation troops left, men from a nearby cell broke a window and let out the entire basement, about 140 people.

Dmytro Stoyanov was the director of a local utility company that worked in the part of the Dvorichan community that was occupied in the first days of the invasion. When the old stocks ran out and the enterprise ceased to perform its functions, the occupiers often came to Dmytro and, threatening to shoot, demanded that the enterprise be renewed according to Russian laws.

The salary must also be paid in rubles. Dmytro refused and ended up in the basements in Kupyansk in the summer. They put a black bag on their heads, tortured them with electric shocks, and beat them. He says that among the executioners there were Russians and the so-called Elenerians. They asked why he did not cross the border, why he did not go to fight against Ukraine on the side of the LPR 8 years ago.

Dmytro left the basement at the same time as Galina. Now it ensures the vital activity of the infrastructure of the community.

And the headman of the village of Vilshan, which is on the other side of Oskol (not to be confused with the village of Vilshany near Dvurichny Kut on the western side of Kharkiv region), was shot by the occupiers in October, after having been held for some time in the Kupyan torture chamber – for the Ukrainian position and refusal to cooperate. Details are currently unknown.

Support and hope

“We’re just living up to something here,” says Volodymyr Anatoliyovych. He has a son, two sons-in-law and two younger brothers serving in the Armed Forces. There has been no contact with anyone for 8 months, where they are and how – the husband does not know.

When he talks about his relatives in the service, his voice trembles with pride, fear and bitter loneliness. Loneliness is something that hangs in the air in these villages. Many older people are left alone, on remote streets, where it is difficult to get to because of shelling, volunteers are greeted with the words “Oh, finally someone remembered us!”

Liliya Volodymyrivna, another resident of the basement in Palestine, says that her daughter-in-law and grandchildren live in Germany, but she will not go to them: “My son is buried here, and my husband and parents – how can I leave them?” The woman escaped from shelling three times. Once fell on the floor; once she moved away from the shed – and a minute later it was blown away; once again went to fetch water. He laughs: “But you will come to us for the winter! Because we have both firewood and chicken, you see, they were chopped yesterday!”

About twenty people live in the basement, built as a bomb shelter after the Second World War. And there are five chinchillas in the corner behind the little house. Volunteers take one of them home, instead they leave food for the rest. Palestinians say: come more often, chinchillas multiply quickly, we will give you more!

In every village, older women embrace the volunteers: “My God, children, you are risking your life when you come here!” In response, they hear that we still only have each other to hold on to.

The road back is troubling. Across the field against the background of a dark sky, “hail” shells fly at our positions. You can’t turn on the headlights – you’re being shot at. We drive in complete darkness on a bad road, which may hide deadly gifts. Volodymyr turns on the light behind one of the miraculously whole bridges and exhales noticeably. Next week, he says, he will go again, because what are the options? I ask: “Why are you doing this?” He says: “And you’re funny.”

Beyond the scope of this text, the question of the current state of the National Nature Park “Dvorichanskyi” and the botanical reserve of local importance “Korobochkine” remains open. This is one of the last territories where the hemlock, long ago listed in the Red Book of Ukraine, and other types of flora, characteristic only of chalk massifs, still grow – similar ones are found in the “Chalk Flora” and “Holy Mountains” nature reserves in Donetsk region, which were also destroyed during the war. But the local residents hope: in the spring they will go again to listen to the baibaks and sow their fields.

On November 30, Russian troops shelled the Kupyan district, Vovchansk and Lypetsk communities. No one was injured, but houses were damaged and four fires broke out.

Oleg Synegubov, head of the regional administration, told about the situation in Kharkiv region on December 1.

“The intensity of shelling in the Kupyan district has increased several times. During the day, the Russians constantly fired artillery at settlements in the border communities of the district. Fires broke out in houses, farm buildings, and warehouses, and open areas were hit,” he said.

The border communities of Vovchansk and Lipetsk are also under fire.

According to the regional center of emergency medical assistance, there are no injured.

Within a day of the shelling, four fires broke out, according to the Main Department of the State Emergency Service in the Kharkiv region.

“About 4:00 p.m., the enemy shelled the village of Liptsi, Kharkiv district. As a result of hitting the residential area, facades of two four-story buildings were damaged, windows were broken, and the gas supply network was interrupted,” the service says.

Three garages also caught fire. The flame covered 10 square meters. m, it was extinguished in half an hour.

Around 17:00 in the village of Kindrashivka, Kupyansk community, a private household building was destroyed by a Russian projectile. The fire spread to 40 square meters. m, it was tamed in an hour.

Around 11:00 p.m. in the village of Vovchanski Khutory, near Vovchansk, a bathhouse in a private yard caught fire from shelling. Flame on an area of ​​42 square meters. m were also extinguished in an hour.

At 04:45, Russian troops fired at a tractor brigade in the village of Bezmyatezhne of the Shevchenkiv community, dry grass was set on fire. Local residents paid it off with their own hands.

“Twice the rescuers went to check the places where enemy shells hit. In the villages of Kindrashivka and Kupyansk, the enemy caused damage to private households. The fire has not been recorded,” the State Emergency Service added.

In the Kharkiv region, the Russian terrorist army shelled a number of civilian objects.

In the Kharkiv Region, the Russians shelled the communities of Liptsi, Kupyansk and Shevchenkivsk.

This is reported by the Main Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region.

According to rescuers, on November 30, around 4:00 p.m., the enemy shelled the village of Liptsi, Kharkiv district. As a result of hitting the residential area, the facades of 2 four-story buildings were damaged, the windows were broken, the gas supply network was interrupted, and there was also a fire in 3 garages. Its area was 10 square meters. Rescuers from the 33rd State Fire and Rescue Station and the 22nd State Fire and Rescue Unit of the State Emergency Service worked at the scene, and at 4:22 p.m. localized the fire and extinguished it at 4:52 p.m.

In addition, at 16:50 in the territory of the village of Kindrashivka of the Kupyan community, an enemy projectile hit a private farm building, which caught fire. The area of ​​the fire was 40 square meters. It took the rescuers of the 44th State Fire and Rescue Unit about an hour to control the fire.

At 10:53 p.m. in the village of Vovchanski Khutory of the Vovchansk community, the occupation forces hit a fire in a bathhouse on the territory of a private household. It burned on an area of ​​42 square meters. It also took about 1 hour for the rescuers of the 47th State Fire and Rescue Unit to extinguish the fire.

Today, December 1, at 4:45 a tractor brigade was fired upon in the village of Bezmyatezhne of the Shevchenkiv community. Dry grass caught fire on an area of ​​20 square meters. Locals managed the fire before the arrival of rescuers.

The rescuers went twice to check the places where enemy shells hit. In the village of Kindrashivka of the Kupian community and in Kupiansk, the enemy caused damage to private households. The fire was not registered.

On the afternoon of November 30, Russian troops shelled the village of Liptsi of the Kharkiv district, which is located approximately 30 km from the regional center. This was reported in the regional administration of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine.

Shells hit residential buildings and garages. The facades and broken windows of two four-story buildings were damaged, 3 garages were on fire, and the gas pipeline was broken. Firefighters extinguished the fire in the garages within hours.

Another shelling was recorded in the village of Kindrashivka of the Kupyan community. There, an enemy projectile hit a private farm building, which caught fire. The area of ​​the fire was 40 square meters. Firefighters extinguished the fire within an hour.

Late in the evening of November 30, at approximately 11:00 p.m., the enemy army shelled the village of Vovchanski Khutory, Chuguyiv District. Shells hit a bathhouse on the territory of a private house, a fire broke out. This was reported in the Main Department of the State Emergency Service of Ukraine in the Kharkiv region.

The area of ​​the fire was 42 square meters. It took rescuers about an hour to extinguish the fire.

On the morning of December 4, at 4:45 a.m., the enemy attacked a tractor brigade in the village of Bezmyatezhne, Shevchenkiv community, Kupyan district. Dry grass was on fire, local residents put it out with their own efforts.

Since the beginning of the counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region, the Ukrainian military has expelled the Russian invaders from hundreds of settlements. New evidence of Russian war crimes is found in the liberated territories. In almost every de-occupied settlement, eyewitnesses talk about kidnapping and abuse by Russian servicemen. Kozacha Lopan was under occupation for more than six months.

The deputy of the local community Oleg Digalo told about his story.

According to the man, from the first days of the occupation, Oleg Digalo, his wife, 29-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter, as well as a nephew, lived in the same house with his wife and child.

In the first days of the Russian occupation, two dozen Russians drove into the deputy’s yard, having previously knocked out the iron gate with an armored personnel carrier. They threw everyone to the ground, tied the men, forcibly put them in a car and took them to a special torture chamber at the railway station.

“When we were taken to the basement, I begged and screamed very hard not to beat my son – you can’t beat him, he won’t stop bleeding. He has hemophilia. The more I screamed, the more they beat him. One of them said that “we will now bring your 17-year-old daughter and rape her here with a bunch of soldiers”, and my eyes will be opened to watch it. They beat the chest, beat the legs, and surrounded the legs with something. They said that they wanted to knock the meat off my bones so that I would become disabled.”

Oleg said that his nephew Artem shouted: “Bitches, don’t beat my brother.” He knew that he would be beaten next, and he was beaten, but he was silent, patient. And when he was beaten, my son was already shouting that his brother should not be beaten. I am proud of my children,” the man says, trying to hold back tears.

For several days, the man, along with his son and nephew, were kept in a basement equipped for torture. Later, the son and nephew were released, while Oleg Digalo stayed in the torture chamber for 8 days, after which they were transferred to Hoptivka, where they were held for a few more days.

He is convinced that he and his family were mocked because of the fact that he is a deputy, in particular, the man was tortured with electric shocks and morally pressured.

Before the start of the full-scale war, Digalo was engaged in horse breeding in Kozachya Lopan. However, due to constant enemy shelling, part of the animals died. The man said that the Russians did not allow the evacuation of the farm, on the contrary, they deliberately mined the area around the stables. Despite the experience, the man assures that he already has plans to revive his favorite business.

“We will rebuild everything! We will breed more horses than there were. Let’s do even better”, Oleg Digalo states.

Since the beginning of September, the Ukrainian military has expelled the Russian occupiers from 544 settlements in the Kharkiv region. New evidence of Russian war crimes is found in the liberated territories. In almost every de-occupied settlement, eyewitnesses talk about kidnapping and abuse by Russian servicemen. Organized torture chambers, destroyed property and mutilated land are the consequences of the temporary occupation in Kharkiv region.

 

In the Kharkiv region, teenagers who were kept by the Russian occupiers were found in the basement. Five minors were in a closed basement for a week.

The city of Balaklia was liberated by the Armed Forces on September 10. The crimes of the Russian military, which were committed there during the six-month occupation, are identical to the tortures and murders in Buch and Irpen. As of the end of September, the police documented 582 murders of the Russian Federation in the liberated territories of Kharkiv region.

According to the results of the exhumation of the bodies of the mass graves near Izyum, 212 dead women, more than 190 men, five children, 22 Ukrainian servicemen and 12 more bodies, the sex of which has not been identified, were found. Despite the brutal murders, the occupiers abducted civilians with pro-Ukrainian views, whose fate is not known for sure.

On October 16, the foreign ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania issued a joint statement calling on the EU, together with international partners, to help Ukraine establish a Special Tribunal to investigate the crime of aggression by the Russian Federation.

The European Union will try to create a specialized court that will investigate and prosecute alleged crimes committed by the Russian Federation in Ukraine, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on November 30.