“Shitty country, put…”, shouts a woman, in front of the body of a man killed in a bombardment on a residential district of Chugouïv, in the east of Ukraine, epicenter of the offensive launched during the night by Russia, which has already claimed dozens of lives.
Near the dead, his crying son, in his thirties, remains prostrate. “I told him to go,” he repeats endlessly, next to the twisted remains of an antediluvian Lada.
The missile crater, four or five meters wide, is located between two totally destroyed five-storey buildings. Firefighters are trying to put out the last fires.
Several other buildings further away from the impact were also seriously damaged, the windows shattered, their uprights hanging in the air.
In this city located 30 km from Kharkiv, the second metropolis of Ukraine, the Russian bombardments resounded part of the night.
Thick black smoke is visible from afar and four buildings are completely gutted.
“With Putin? Rather die “
Olena Kourilo, a 52-year-old teacher, leaves the Chugouïv hospital, her face covered with bandages. She was injured by broken windows when she was in her apartment during a missile launch.
“I only managed to think ‘God, I’m not ready to die.’ I was in shock, I didn’t feel any pain, maybe adrenaline,” she says, adding that a 13-year-old girl had been killed by this bombardment in the landing next door.
“I didn’t think such a thing could happen. […] I will do everything for Ukraine, as much as I can”.
“Never, under any conditions, will I live under Putin. It is better to die, ”she says.
Serguiï, 67, tries to block up his windows with a table whose legs protrude into the void, on the ground floor of his apartment.
The man escaped with a few bruises. “I’m going to stay there, my daughter is in Kiev and it’s the same there,” he said, while explosions were also heard Thursday morning in the main cities of the country.
According to him, the missile targeted the nearby military airfield. “He was one of the targets that Putin had cited, I’m not even surprised,” he continues.
“Defend my country”
The Russian military said on Thursday it had destroyed anti-aircraft defense systems and “disabled” air bases across the country.
But the threat did not come only from the sky.
The much feared ground invasion also began Thursday morning from the north, south and east including the separatist region of Lugansk.
Among the Ukrainians of the region, prepared by eight years of armed conflict with the pro-Russian separatist rebels, in this disaster scenario, everyone claims to know what to do.
“If they continue to bombard us, I will find weapons and defend my homeland, it does not matter that I am 62 years old”, threatens Vladimir Levachov, resident of Chugouïv.
“And yet, I am Russian. But, if you look at history, if you read books, 300, 400 years ago, it was already the same thing. Russians are flayers! “, he enrages.
“Fight everywhere”
On the main eastern roads, the Ukrainian army was everywhere. Between Kramatorsk and Kharkiv, a column of vehicles bearing the blue-yellow flag is stationary.
300 km away, Mariupol, the main port in the south-east of the country, powerful explosions shook the city, which has been relatively spared in recent weeks.
In the sector, the first evacuations begin, in particular from the small towns of Zoloté and Gorské. “We will take people to the nearest station,” said Oleksiï Babtchenko, spokesman for the civil defence.
But further away, in the town of Novotochkovka, such evacuations are now impossible. A few hours after the start of the offensive, Russian artillery fire was already too heavy and communications complicated.
“The offensive is underway along the entire demarcation line in the Lugansk and Donetsk regions,” Babchenko said. “Fighting is going on everywhere.”
“We cannot yet receive information about the victims, because there is no communication in this area.”
Pavlopil, in the Donetsk region, which was targeted by Grad missiles, is without gas, water and electricity afterward and evacuations were underway Thursday morning, according to Mayor Sergiy Chapkin.
“Since 4 a.m., we have been fired upon with (rocket launchers) Grad and Hurricane. They are trying to raze the village of Starogrativka,” village mayor Volodymyr Vesselkin told AFP by phone.