Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Kharkiv savors respite from fight
But residents know Russians near, may return at any time
KHARKIV, Ukraine — The trenchworks along the northern edge of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, have begun to erode and fill with refuse, and the soldiers who used them to defend the city from the Russian onslaught have departed to other fronts.
Today, the fortifications are manned only by mannequins in military uniforms, including one, perhaps too optimistically, wearing a blue United Nations peacekeeping helmet.
All around, the blackened and pockmarked high-rise apartment buildings testify to the ferocity of the fighting that occurred here in Ukraine’s northeast in the early months of the war. But there is a stillness now, and residents are not quite sure how to interpret it.
Ukrainian forces expelled the Russian military from almost the whole region in a blitz offensive in September that took much of the world by surprise. Not only did it inject new vigor into the Ukrainian war effort, but it also gave Kharkiv some breathing space.
But the Ukrainians could push their enemies only so far. The border is about 25 miles from the city center, well within range of many Russian weapons.
Kateryna Vnukova, 19, an economics student in Kharkiv, said that from her 12th-floor apartment in the city center, she can sometimes see shelling in the distance.
“I think now it’s all calm and quiet in Kharkiv, but it’s not calm and quiet,” said Vnukova, who was out for a twilight walk last weekend but was trying to get home before sundown. “Normally, when it gets dark, the devils
come out, the ones there, over the border.”
Now there are signs that Russian forces are regrouping for a new offensive that could again threaten the city. Last week, Vadym Skibitsky, the deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, told a Ukrainian news outlet that a Russian tank division that had been deployed in Belarus had been diverted, possibly as part of a buildup of forces that could once again push into the Kharkiv region.
As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches its anniversary, Kharkiv has become a showcase of Ukrainian military success, but also of its limitations. For the past four months, residents have slowly trickled back into the city. Power, heat and gas have been restored to most dwellings;
there is traffic in the streets; and there are patrons in the restaurants and cafes, although many of their windows remain broken and boarded up.
Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov boasted that the city population had doubled since the first months of the war to about 1.1 million people — from a prewar population of 1.4 million — and that construction was underway to repair some of the 4,500 homes severely damaged in Russia’s failed effort to take the city. Although mindful that the fighting is far from over, the mayor is working with acclaimed architect Norman Foster on a postwar development plan.
“We have to return Kharkiv residents to the city, but they can’t come back and find themselves in a broken
shell,” he said. “The general plan for the development of London in 1943 was done under bombardment by the fascists.”
But his development plan does not envision a speedy end to the conflict, or a total respite for Kharkiv. Among its provisions is a requirement that all newly built apartment blocks include underground parking lots that can double as bomb shelters.
While it is quieter in Kharkiv than it has been since the invasion began, the war does not seem all that far away.
Air raid sirens sound constantly, and Ukrainian fighter jets roar through the air on patrol. On a recent night, several burly men in camouflage uniforms and balaclavas entered an upscale Japanese restaurant
to hand out draft notices to Ukrainian men, sending the servers into hiding.
Russian artillery and rockets pound villages in the region, and heavier missiles regularly hit the city center as Russian forces continue to target critical infrastructure like power plants.
An enormous thermal power plant has been attacked several times, including with an Iranian-made Shahed explosive drone. The attacks have blown a gigantic hole through the roof, broken all of the windows and knocked out heating to the city for several days.
“Thankfully, God is protecting us,” said Yevhen Kaurkin, the plant’s technical director.
The war is closer still in the northern neighborhood of Saltivka, ravaged by the fighting, and remains a
difficult place to live despite efforts to improve conditions. On a recent day, city workers in fluorescent green vests were raking leaves in front of a bombed-out building that looked like a wobbly tower of Jenga blocks.
During the worst of the fighting, hundreds sheltered in the musky basement of Kharkiv Municipal Gymnasium No. 172. Although no one now shelters there full time, hundreds still come back daily for warm meals prepared in the school’s kitchen.
The school’s director, Oleksandra Utkina, who also teaches mathematics, said that she was excited for the day when children could return but acknowledged that would not happen anytime soon.
“We need for them to stop shooting first,” she said.