‘No holidays in war’

Local infrastructure has been ruined and many residents have yet to return. CONFLICT: SIGNS OF NORMALITY IN SHATTERED UKRAINE CITY

Three women plant flowers on a roundabout in central Kharkiv, while not far away men fill sandbags for a defensive barrier on the north of the city, the side closest to Russia.

It is a stark illustration of how people in the war-battered city in the northeast are attempting to recapture some essence of normal life, even though Russian aggression lurks not far away.

Kharkiv, the regional capital, has been battered by the conflict, enduring an assault by Moscow’s forces lasting several days and fighting in its suburbs, before weathering regular salvoes of shelling.

But the noose around Ukraine’s second-largest city has been loosening in recent days, even as the war rages elsewhere.

However, much local infrastructure has been ruined and many residents have yet to return.

“We are trying to keep the city alive,” said a city hall spokesperson.

The city of 1.5 million people in peacetime “is huge and some people can’t move or go to work without buses”, she said.

The spokesperson said the mayor had neither encouraged nor dissuaded residents from returning.

“The situation is different in every district,” she said.

At Kharkiv’s railway station, many people who fled in February at the start of Russia’s invasion are returning.

Some areas have been hard hit. In the northeastern Saltivka district, towering apartment blocks were shelled by Russian troops who came from Belgorod, a Russian town on the other side of the border.

Cashier Iana, 49, and her husband contemplate the damage to their flat that now overlooks a void since the facade was blasted away.

Iana’s husband entered through the roof, lowering himself down with a rope.

“He got in and it was horrible,” she said.

Oleksandr Vendland, a 45-yearold widower, visits his ravaged apartment, including the bedroom of his two daughters aged eight and 14.

Vendland, who sent his daughters to family in Germany, said it would now be “impossible” for children to live in the city.

Water leaks from pipes shattered by explosions. Electricity, gas and water technicians work around the clock to restore utilities.

“No holidays in times of war!” said Sergei Oleshko, an electrical engineer working on fallen power lines. –