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In a small town in northern Ukraine, Russian forces, now gone, devastated the area. Their departure shows the extent of the nightmare experienced by the locals.
Yahidne is one of the martyr villages of this war in Ukraine. 115 kilometers northeast of kyiv, this area has long remained inaccessible. Russian soldiers occupied it for more than a month, and no house was spared. Some buildings are completely destroyed. In one of their former bases, a resident shows her cellar, where the Russians took refuge when the Ukrainians struck. “They didn’t even eat their rations, they stole everything from us“, she explains. The inhabitants describe large-scale looting.
The remaining residents now worry about who will be able to repair the damage, as those who left may never return. A few hundred inhabitants cohabited with the Russian soldiers for 25 long days. “They were hiding behind the houses”, says one of them. “Ithere were 138 people in 76 square meters, and look, the children made drawings on the wall […]. I slept standing up and used a sling to tie myself up like a belt so I wouldn’t fall.”