‘When the leaking ammonia got bad we evacuated’
Ukrainian families reveal how they survived shelling in the toxic surroundings of Donbas chemical plant
For close to two months, Vladimir sheltered with his elderly mother and mother-in-law in the darkness of a spartan bunker under the sprawling Azot chemical plant as fighting raged around them in the embattled eastern city of Severodonetsk.
“It became really frightening when Ukrainian soldiers took up positions within the factory grounds and the fight came very close to us,” he said.
But incoming shells and gunfire were not the only deadly threats facing some 800 plant workers and their families hunkered underground beneath the factory stacks as Russian forces besieged Severodonetsk, a strategic prize in the offensive to seize the entire region of Donbas.
Above them, vats of toxic chemicals used to produce nitrogen fertilisers were now at the centre of one of the bloodiest flashpoints of the fourmonth war, exposing them to the risk of explosions and leakage.
As a member of an emergency response team, Vladimir, 54, recalls rushing to help repair a tank full of dangerous ammonia gas – which can cause blindness, breathing difficulties and death – after it had been damaged by fighting.
His account is one of the first to emerge from the plant, which became a refuge for hundreds of civilians when Severodonetsk became the focal point of Russia’s attempts to sweep across eastern Ukraine after its assault on the capital Kyiv failed in the first two months of the war.
As Russian forces closed in on surrounding villages in the advance to capture the vast industrial regions of Luhansk and Donetsk, workers evacuated their children and elderly relatives from increasingly vulnerable homes to the relative safety of the factory’s sturdy Cold War-era bomb shelters.
The security of their refuge was in question over the weekend after Russian shelling caused a huge fire when tens of tonnes of oil leaked from radiators damaged during “non-stop” fighting to overrun the city, according to Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Luhansk. He insisted Ukraine
‘It became frightening when Ukrainian soldiers took up positions within the factory grounds and the fight came very close to us’
remained in control of the Azot industrial zone, rejecting claims by Russian-backed separatists that 300 to 400 Ukrainian fighters were trapped inside, in a parallel to the earlier siege of the Azov regiment in the tunnels of the mammoth Azovstal steelworks in the port of Mariupol, as a “lie”.
Unlike the Azovstal battle, where outgunned fighters held out in dire conditions, drawing Russian air raids, artillery and tank fire before surrendering in May, the Azot plant has been a shelter for civilians simply trying to survive the Russian onslaught.
About 500 remain, including some 40 children, the governor said. Vladimir lived there with his invalid mother Ludmila, 82, and mother-inlaw Nadezhda, 70, from April 7 until early this month after their homes were damaged by shelling.
He said the conditions were basic, but that the thick walls of the factory’s multiple bomb shelters reassured the occupants. The bunkers, officially designed to protect critical infrastructure during the Cold War, were equipped with bathroom facilities and running water.
“We didn’t have electricity, but we had a diesel generator that worked for six hours a day, and we cooked food over an open log fire,” he said.
“When the shelling stopped, people stepped outside to breathe and to smoke.” Vladimir’s job on the emergency response team was vital to the survival of the plant and the safety of those inside.
“Russian shelling was damaging the containers holding ammonia, which is a very nasty chemical. That’s why I couldn’t leave,” he said.
“The director told me when the situation gets really critical, I’ll give you an order to evacuate and the whole factory should evacuate,” he said.
That moment came a week ago, when Vladimir boarded a Ukrainian military armoured vehicle with Ludmila and Nadezhda to flee firstly to the nearby city of Lysychansk before being evacuated further westwards.
The family spoke to The Daily Telegraph in the city of Dnipro while sitting in a stuffy sleeper car on the train from Pokrovsk to Lviv – a 17-hour journey that is now the last rail evacuation route from the east.
Each of the half a dozen carriages was crammed with civilians, who grabbed what little they could as the fury of the Russian military bore down on their homes.
A few seats away, Vasylyna Humeniuk, 17, cuddled Mia, her exotic cat. She said she had left Pokrovsk after explosions the previous night signalled the eastern front was drawing closer, but she hoped she could return home soon to her boyfriend and to study to become a nurse.
Vladimir said that he had managed to salvage his identity papers but otherwise just possessed the clothes on his back.
He said he was desperate to take his mother, who has trouble walking, to his sister’s home in Germany but feared he would be stopped by a wartime ban on men under 60 leaving the country.
“Please can you help me?” Vladimir asked.
“I left behind my car and my business,” he said, adding that he did not know if his home was still standing.
“We don’t have anywhere to come back to.”