Mykolaiv is known for its shipyard. This port city in southern Ukraine is now punctuated by the alerts that echo in its streets, and the Russian bombings.
The population remaining in Mykolaiv does not always pay attention to these upheavals of the war, despite an attack on a military base on Saturday March 19, and the bombing of an administrative building on March 29, which between them caused several dozen dead. Ukrainian forces have pushed the Russian army away from its suburbs in the direction of Kherson, an occupied neighboring city, where the population demonstrates daily to demand the departure of Russian troops. The scars of the fighting are visible on the buildings gutted by the missiles.
The streets are emptied of their cars, and the few pedestrians wander in the middle of the boulevards. A huge sign I love Mykolaiv recalls the pre-war life of a formerly bustling city. Restaurants and shops are closed, and queues are visible in front of pharmacies and a fruit and vegetable merchant.
Tatiana, 68, shows the rubble of her home which was hit at 1.30am on March 25, 2022.
Born to Ukrainian parents in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, she has already faced the Russian bombardments which shook her native country in 1994 and pushed her, at the age of 42, towards the land of her ancestors: Ukraine. On the morning of February 24, Tatiana, this strong woman of character, sees history repeating itself. The Russian bombs again fell near her, leaving a gaping hole in her attic and breaking the panes of her windows.
His attic is now a wasteland, letting the freezing cold creep into his house. His son, concerned, had prepared a makeshift shelter for him in the cellar, and had installed a mattress on the floor and a lamp connected to the floor with an extension cord. He came quickly to help his mother clean up the damage caused by the impact. Annoyed by the work to be done to restore the house, he rubs his face. Tatiana is formal: “I wouldn’t flee a second time, we have to close the airspace! »
Civilian casualties
A fine hail fell on the forecourt of the Mykolaiv morgue. In one of the corners of the establishment, employees discreetly smoke cigarettes before loading the corpses of civilians killed by the Russian bombardments into the trucks.
A woman wrapped in a thick orange coat observes the macabre scene. The deceased transported by the employees of the morgue, who seems frozen by this icy morning, is one of his relatives. Shivering with cold, she whispers.
In a few minutes, three trucks and three coffins took the direction of the cemetery, not far from the front line. This was the target of a Russian missile which did not explode during a ceremony the previous week.
In the midst of this incessant coming and going, soldiers and volunteers from units of the territorial forces are also present. One of them is a retired Ukrainian soldier. He is equipped with a turnstile attached to his tactical vest, next to a badge indicating his blood group: A +. His weapon, which seems straight out of the factory, is firmly held along his body. When the war started, he could not wait for the order to join the army as a reservist, so, like many Ukrainians, he voluntarily joined units of the territorial forces. “I couldn’t wait to be called up as a reservist. It’s not possible to work in an office, with my experience, I have to defend my country,” he says, convinced. The conversation is interrupted by the passage of a soldier who accompanies a woman in tears. Exhausted, the woman collapses. The soldier holding her elbow so that she doesn’t fall, they enter the darkness of the morgue.
A half-open door gives access to a mass grave where a dozen corpses, which are difficult to identify, are piled on top of each other. The bodies are marked by the violence of the bombardments; the flesh is red from the burns, and limbs are torn off. Some bodies keep a semblance of humanity with frozen facial expressions, while others no longer have any skin. The fabrics that dress them are khaki, similar to that of military outfits.
In a shed further on, corpses are laid out in a row, on the floor. A homeland defense volunteer and a soldier approach to mask the scene. War is everywhere, it kills civilians and soldiers without distinction, but the watchword is not to show it. The doors of the morgue close when a lame dog comes to take shelter from the hail that falls on Mykolaiv.
Mykolaiv psychiatric hospital was targeted by a strike on March 21, which caused no casualties. People with shovels form two rows in the courtyard of the establishment. The groups move towards the three buildings affected by the explosion. With clumsiness and a certain slowness, the patients of the hospital take part in the cleaning of the places.
Clearing rubble has become a commonplace scene in the city of Mykolaiv. Near apartment buildings, two young women equipped with brooms mobilize to clean a sidewalk covered with fine shards of glass. Further on, holes left by the impact of the missiles were covered with earth and pebbles.
The inhabitants are trying to heal the wounds of their city despite the continuing bombardments.
The Tornado-S
In the middle of a dented dirt street, dogs are barking behind a gate. A garage was pierced by a Tornado-S missile which eventually crashed into a new Mercedes Benz car without exploding. The Tornado-S model has a firing range of 120 km.
Dmitry, 26, is the head of a special fire brigade in Mykolaiv. After a visual analysis while standing at a distance, the fire chief gives orders to his teams. “There doesn’t appear to be any explosives, but put on your body armor, helmets and gloves before approaching the missile. The bombardments are daily. “We collect these gifts from hell four to six times a day, expresses, fatalistic, Dmitry. Fear is present, we must be afraid, otherwise we are crazy. Dmitry, like many Ukrainians at the start of the war, brought his relatives to a neighboring country for protection. Dmitry’s wife and children found refuge in Moldova. “They call me every day to make sure I’m still alive and doing my job well,” he says.
The owner of the vehicle pierced by the Russian missile is on site. A can of non-alcoholic beer in hand, Andrej observes the firefighters who are busy extracting the machine. “With my salary of $ 300 a month, I had saved for three years to afford this Mercedes that I was able to buy only two months ago, when the shadow of war was not yet hovering”, explains he, demoralized. With his neighbor, Ihor, they film the scene and take pictures of it from all angles to pass the time and to forget that the missile could have exploded and killed them. “I lost everything,” sighs Andrej.
Mykolaiv fire chief Dmitry examines the Tornado-S. According to him, this model was used by Russia in Syria. The special features of this rocket launcher are its long firing range and its accuracy thanks to its individually equipped shells with an integrated navigation system.
To allow the extraction of the vehicle and the Tornado-S, the firefighters evacuated the area. Andrej, the owner of the Mercedes, is kept at bay. After a few tries, in vain, Dmitry’s team manages to move the car using a truck that pulled it by an iron cable.
Vladimir is a 22-year-old firefighter from Dmitry’s team. Together with his colleagues, they inspect the Tornado-S stuck in the Mercedes.
He exclaims, “What else is there to say? Everyone knows what we’re asking, shut up the sky! His words echo the repeated request of the Ukrainian president, who, since the start of the conflict, has been calling for a no-fly zone on his territory.
Mobilized for an hour, Mykolaiv firefighters finished the operation to secure the area. The destroyed car is again parked in its garage with a hole in the ceiling.
A life in smoke
A huge black smoke rises from a part of the city. No bombing alerts or explosions were heard. The daily life of Mykolaiv firefighters alternates between neutralizing unexploded missiles, extinguishing fires caused by shelling, and simple domestic fires. Despite the large number of operations at a high rate of work, the Mykolaiv fire brigade reserve has not yet been called up.
On March 23, 2022, Dimitri drives the fire truck. It is also his birthday, he is celebrating his 55th birthday, but does not have time to celebrate it. He just hopes he can rest tonight.
2 p.m. Volodymir and his wife, Zoya, both 65, called firefighters for help when their barn and a small house under construction for their son caught fire.
As the firefighters work to put out the blaze, Volodymir comes closer to supervise, before the firefighters ask him to step aside. “There may be explosions,” warns one of them.
Volodymir paces in anguish before rejoining his wife, who is rocking calmly on an outdoor chair. They have lived there for 20 years and before their very eyes, their lives are going up in smoke and ashes.