in Kharkiv, despite the war, employees of a radio station continue broadcasts

In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, Radio Nakypilo reports on the daily lives of residents under Russian missiles.

After the death of two French humanitarian workers in southern Ukraine during a Russian bombing, Paris denounces an act of “barbarity” of Moscow, facts into which the anti-terrorism prosecution will open an investigation. The two victims died during a strike on Beryslav, a small town located on the north bank of the Dnieper River, near the front line. This drama illustrates the perseverance of the Russians in attacking Ukraine throughout its territory: Kherson in the south, but also in the north of the country. In Kharkiv, the country’s second city, daily attacked by missiles or drones, Radio Nakypilo chronicles, day by day, the exasperation of the residents.

There are two meanings to the name this radio chose: being fed up but having so much to say. This is the entire editorial line of Radio Nakypilo and the perfect summary of the state of mind of the inhabitants of Kharkiv. Like Anna Gubanova, one of the voices on the air: “Everyone in Kharkiv has learned to coexist with that. People who stayed in Kharkhiv say to themselves, ‘Okay if we have to die we die, but first let’s do everything we can.’ Life has returned to Kharkiv, restaurants, cafes have reopened. In the night, you are awake because a rocket hit the neighboring building. You are awake and then you go to work.”

The radio is now installed in a basement. The building where she was in the first months of the war had to be evacuated. A Russian missile hit a nearby building. As a precaution, they had to move, recalls Ehven Streltsov, the editor-in-chief: “I’m tired but I’m doing what I have to do. This is our country, this is our city and we want to be part of Ukraine, part of the free world.”

“If they kill me, let them kill me here.”

This is the end of Natalka Marynchak’s show, dedicated to mental health in general. The theme that morning: how to protect yourself from the deluge of information, true or false, that falls on Ukrainians’ phones.

Natalka never left her town and will never get used to war: “This invincibility, this stubbornness, makes me proud. This obsession with saying to myself ‘I was there, I am there and I will stay there’. That’s what supported me at the beginning and prevented me from leave here. I stood up and said to myself: ‘This is my land’. If they kill me, let them kill me here. I won’t leave my house.” Of the 26 employees of Radio Nakypilo, none has left the city since the start of the war. One of them went to the front, he joined a unit at the border where he pilots drones.