In Marina’s apartment in kyiv, we measure the anguish caused by this war, a little more than a month after the start of the Russian offensive on Ukraine. This young editor sleeps in her hallway: she put tape on all her windows to protect them from explosions. She is now cut off from her parents, who are in the occupied zone.
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“My parents went out to demonstrate three times with other residents. The first two times, they were able to ward off the threat that came from the pro-Russians. But the third time, armed Russians came. They said: ‘We won’t listen to you anymore, we are here and that’s how it is!says the young woman on franceinfo.
Marina’s father and mother live in Svatove, near the Donbass. According to his account, the Russians took the city a fortnight ago.
Marina, who is holding her phone, also tells how the administration has already changed hands in political affairs: “They have taken control of the police, the army offices, the prosecutor’s office… All the official buildings are occupied. They take down the Ukrainian flags and they trample them.“
In their house; with ten cats, two dogs, Marina’s mother is now a witness to the Russian occupation, which she tells her daughter about through the Internet, which has not been cut off. “They don’t control people on the street. They didn’t arrest me, but I saw that they had arrested someone in a car. It’s been a long time since we tried to go out, to be discreet because they’re looking for patriots.“, she says on the phone.
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There is still meat and bread to eat in this small town in eastern Ukraine, a month after the start of the Russian offensive. But his mother, Galina, a librarian by profession, explains that the only TV that passes now is that of Moscow. She worries about Russians threatening Ukrainian history and identity: “I’m afraid that all books on Ukrainian history, on national resistance, books of poetry, will be destroyed. You have to hide them somewhere. We hid all the Ukrainian flags. I do not see myself working with this government.“
In Svatove, the occupation piloted from the Kremlin is taking place at a brisk pace: the plate of the office of the Ukrainian Ministry of the Interior on the spot has already been changed. It is now in Russian.