A difficult May
KHARPP's response to Russia's new offensive on Kharkiv
This is a bulletin that I really hoped I would never have to write. As I’m sure you’ve all seen, since the last update, the situation in Kharkiv and Kharkiv Oblast has worsened significantly. On 10th May morning Russian troops again crossed the border. This isn’t a military blog and I won’t get into the nuances of the situation too deeply, but for the sake of clarity: KHARPP works predominantly in the villages on three roads going up from Kharkiv to the border with Russia. The border point on one of those roads, going down to Mali and Velyki Prokhody, Rus’ky and Cherkas’ki Tyshky and Tsyrkuny, has been breached. Mali and Velyki Prokhody have been mostly evacuated, with only a few residents left. Evacuations are also ongoing in Rus’ky and Cherkas’ky Tyshki . Others may follow and some of what we are focussing on now is preparing for that. Most of the villages we work in remain quiet – Slatyne, Prudianka, Tsupivka, and Rus’ka Lozova, for example, are so far not majorly impacted by this new offensive, however the situation there is tense and of course may change at any moment, especially if Russian troops manage to cross the border onto the highways they lie on.
Underlined are the villages where we predominantly work. Red shows the newly occupied territory, green shows territory that has been occupied and liberated since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.
We have now paused our repairs programme, waiting out what the next few weeks bring. Windows for the House of Culture/youth club in Tsyrkuny were delivered earlier this week having been ordered two weeks ago, and will be safely stored until we, along with the local administration, decide the situation is stable enough to install them. This is obviously hugely difficult to stomach, especially as just last week we passed 800 homes repaired. However, what is being stressed by every official and resident of every village we work in who I have spoken to this week is that this does not undermine the importance of the work that we have done. Thousands of people survived winters because of this work, and the hope we have provided to these communities has been immense. The risk of a new offensive was always there, but giving people time in their homes before it came has provided so much. I also don’t want this to sound fatalistic. The majority of the places we work are stable, and we hope they remain as such. The situation is bad, but over the last few days it seems to have stabilised, and in the coming weeks it may turn around – especially if American weapons arrive in time. However, regardless of what happens next, we are now working with local administrations to temporarily reorient our work until such a time when it becomes clear what comes next.
I spent the last week in Kharkiv, going around our villages and assessing the needs there, and so will provide a brief update on the various areas that we have been focussing on.
Medicines and medical equipment
The worst of the fighting has been going on in Vovchansk, a city to the north-east of the region which was once home to 20,000 people before being occupied at the beginning of the war, liberated in September 2022, and relentlessly pounded by Russian artillery ever since. This is not an area that KHARPP has worked in before, however early last week we received a request from a local GP, Anastasiia, who had fled to Kharkiv before the occupation in 2022, but has continued to travel regularly to her hometown with her clinic. Thousands of people have been evacuated from the area to Kharkiv itself in the last ten days, many of them Anastasiia’s former patients. Anastasiia’s clinic is working nonstop (and for free) to help those fleeing her hometown. She wrote to KHARPP requesting a whole list of basic medicines, since these refugees are unable to buy their own. Within a few days we had delivered the entire list directly to her clinic. Anastasiia had written to multiple organisations requesting help, all of which either ignored her message, or responded saying that they had their own in-house doctors who she could send her patients to. For Anastasiia’s patients, however, she is providing not just medical care, but some sense of familiarity and consistency, which an anonymous doctor from an aid organisation just wouldn’t be able to do. We’ve committed to keep supporting Anastasiia and her work for as long as they need it, as well as buying new basic medical equipment, laptops, etc. since much of theirs has been destroyed.
Anastasiia with the medicine we have provided, with the coat of arms of Vovchansk behind her.
Accommodation for Internally Displaced People
So far, the evacuation of civilians from frontline villages has been relatively smooth. However, there is increasing concern that if Russia has more success, even more villages will have to be evacuated and will stretch the system even further. In particular, if the Russian army manages to cross the border at Kozacha Lopan, the majority of the villages we work in will have to be evacuated. So far, they have been unable to do so, and we are hoping this remains the case, but also preparing for the worst.
KHARPP has received a request from a shelter for IDPs in Kharkiv (most IDPs don’t travel any further) to repair the windows of a former student dormitory to house further IDPs, as well as to purchase a 20kW generator. Touring this dormitory is very bizarre, with most of the students having left in a hurry and not returned since, abandoning their possessions in their rooms. Nonetheless, the university administration along with the city has done an excellent job organising the other dormitories their house IDPs in, and so supporting them to continue this work feels like a positive way to help people from our villages keep going.
We have also received a request to provide much more comprehensive repairs to an abandoned dormitory in central Ukraine, with the intention of moving people further west. In the next few days, we will go and tour the site to assess the level of repairs required and determine the support we can offer.
For the time being, we have promised the heads of the villages were we work that anyone who wants to leave the area, but is worried about accommodation, can rely on us, whether this be through the repairs of dormitories, or through renting temporary accommodation until the situation clarifies itself. Inevitably, people are very reluctant to leave their homes again, and we cannot force them to, however our aim is to ensure that people are aware that they will not be left our in the cold if they do.
The dormitory in Kharkiv where we have been requested to support with repairs and a generator.
Energy support
Since this new incursion, the main request we have received from our villages is for more energy support. Whilst the situation with electricity remains relatively stable, even after the infrastructure attacks six weeks ago, Russian tactics are always to destroy the electricity of any area they hope to occupy, cutting them off from the rest of Ukraine and increasing terror in the residents. Last week was therefore spent delivering new generators and portable power stations, as well as several hundred litres of fuel around the villages, including giving one portable power station to the police in Derhachi, who have been organising evacuations from the villages currently under attack (and have already lost electricity), and can now take it with them for these evacuations to make sure they stay connected. The electricity in Derhachi is also cut out for several hours a day, further hindering their ability to complete their essential work, so we hope this will go some way to easing the situation they have once again been forced into.
Fuel, portable power stations, and a generator for Slatyne.
Windows
The emergency fundraiser launched six weeks ago for those whose homes were damaged after the attack on our team’s street in Derhachi was a huge success. Once again, thank you all. These were, of course, not the circumstances we would have liked to have visited the homes of the recipients, however it was nonetheless good to speak to them and to hear about their plans. Invariably, when it was suggested that KHARPP could support with evacuation, people refused. The refrain across the villages this week has been that unless there is an immediate risk of occupation, people are not willing to leave their homes, no matter what state they may be in. Nonetheless, they have our contact details and know to get in touch if they need. For now, however, they are all enjoying some vague normality in their homes, which, regardless of what may come next, is something priceless.
This newsletter is very long, but I just wanted to end with one story of one of the recipients from our last order in Derhachi. Natalia, prior to the war, lived with her son, Misha, in their large house at the end of the town. In February 2022, she fled to western Ukraine, whilst Misha joined the army to defend his home. Last year, Misha was severely wounded. He was in a coma for a time, and had a series of operations, before moving home to recover. Natalia returned home at the same time to care for him, bringing with her a cat she had rescued from the street in western Ukraine. Tragically, despite his mother’s care, Misha died after just a few weeks at home. Natalia decided then that she would not be leaving her home again, wanting to stay under the roof where her son was not only born, but also died. When, in March, the glide bomb hit her next-door neighbour’s house directly, shattering all her windows and blowing out the wall of the attack wall of Misha’s room, that cat she had adopted in western Ukraine was in the middle of giving birth. Miraculously, all the kittens survived. The traumatic experience of the attack has not changed Natalia’s mind on her decision to remain in Derhachi, where she plans to stay come-what-may, with her new arrivals, and with Misha close-by. There are thousands of people like Natalia, who serve to remind us that telling people to evacuate is never that simple. Nonetheless she has our contact details if she needs them.
The past ten days have brought back the horrors of the first days of the war for so many people. There’s a palpable feeling of heartbreak that is reverberating around Kharkiv and the villages, that they are once again at risk of occupation after putting so much into building their lives back, but alongside this there is one of defiance. For KHARPP, there is also a sense of loss, that four of the villages we put so much time, money, and energy into helping to repair are once again being emptied of their residents. However, we remain positive, holding out for the weapons from the USA to arrive quickly and assist the Ukrainian troops in pushing the Russians back across the border, and prevent them from making any more crossings. For now, we stand firm, continuing to support these communities which we are so embedded in in whatever way they might need. Thank you for sticking with us. Things are very dark now, but we hope for better days ahead. Please keep supporting us, as we keep supporting these communities.
So very hard to bear. This is what wars are like,back and forth. In Ukraine especially, in WW2. What can one do, except keep going? Mother Courage.....
We keep you, and Ukrainians, always in our minds