In a courtyard at the back of a large house in Boutcha, a suburb of kyiv that has become a symbol of the brutality of the Russian forces, Maxime has dinner that evening in peace with his wife and his neighbors.
About three months ago, Russian soldiers searched his house and slept in the children’s room.
The family had left at the time: Anna, the mother, was in Romania and Maxime had taken the two children to a safer area in western Ukraine after the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
Today, the whole family is gathered around the table and Maxime, a 36-year-old web designer, observes: “in this atmosphere, I feel as if nothing could happen and life is normal”.
“But we know there is a war and no place is safe in Ukraine right now.”
His house, a new two-storey building, suffered only minor damage during the Russian occupation. It is located on the edge of Boutcha, a suburb north-west of kyiv where other families with young children from the capital have chosen to settle in order to enjoy a quieter life.
“The Russian soldiers slept in our house for two or three nights, ate everything in our fridge and left us this,” he said, showing a packet of Russian military rations.
scars
In February, the Russian army which was then trying to encircle kyiv entered Boutcha. When forces regained control a month later, atrocities against civilians were uncovered.
On April 2, AFP journalists discovered 20 dead civilian bodies in Yablounska Street.
In this same street, three months later, children are walking around, earphones in their ears, men are returning from work and others are busy repairing the damage caused by the fighting.
In front of a building, a blond woman stares at the scars left on the building by artillery fire, then turns her head and sighs.
A few kilometers from Yablounska Street, a neighbor of Maxime and Anna, Nastya Glyieva, a 36-year-old pastry chef, was also in Romania when the Russian soldiers arrived in Boutcha.
Not to remain a prisoner of information, she worked as a volunteer at Filaret, a Bucharest bus station that has become a transit point for Ukrainian refugees.
“My 11-year-old daughter’s teacher and her whole family were killed,” she said. “And I don’t know how to tell him that.”
“A Thousand Russians in the Village”
“Almost every day we hear the sound of explosive devices defused by our army,” she adds. “At first it startled me, but now it has become normal for us.”
His house, bought a year ago, was spared the fighting. His brother-in-law, Dmitri Gliev, came to live there.
This 20-year-old cook had previously lived under Russian occupation for almost a month in his small village near Chernobyl, which has since been taken over by Ukrainian forces.
” [Fin] February, we were completely occupied, there were more than a thousand Russians in our village,” says Dmitri. “We were told it wouldn’t last long but they stayed there for a month.”
“At first I was very scared, I put my mattress in the bathroom and I stayed there for three days,” he continues. “We made our own flour with wheat and we baked the bread made with it”.
Dmitri is now in charge of the barbecue for dinner at Maxime’s.
“If they had taken kyiv, there would be no more Ukraine, no freedom, no Ukrainian culture, just ‘a little Russia'”, observes Maxime. “But I would never live in a country like that.”