Street battles inflicted deep scars on Kyiv’s population
Ayear ago this weekend, the start of Russia’s assault on Kyiv plunged Europe into its gravest military crisis since the Second World War. Colin Freeman, a Telegraph correspondent, stayed in Ukraine’s capital during the month-long battle so he could report on the city’s struggle for survival. A year on, he and photographer Julian Simmonds tracked down witnesses to record their recollections of the siege.
The burning Russian tank column
Russia’s attack on the suburb of Brovary was stopped, quite literally, in its tracks when Ukrainian forces wiped out a tank column as it drove down a highway. Aerial footage captured tanks and armoured vehicles being pulverised by artillery and drones.
A year later, a tank wheel that flew off an exploding Russian vehicle and bounced through Volodymr Skorek’s backyard, demolishing an outdoor toilet, remains in the garden – a memento from a triumphant but terrifying day.
“I remember hearing loads of explosions on the road outside and occasionally I would take a look out of the window,” he said. “I saw a Russian armoured vehicle driving up and down the road, firing at everything in sight.”
During the 18-hour battle that followed, Mr Skorek saw Russian troops clambering half-naked from vehicles as their uniforms burned. Tanks driven into surrounding fields ran into landmines. When it was all over, he emerged to find his pet dog had been shot dead and the area was littered with Russian corpses. He fled the area, returning weeks later to find locals had dug temporary graves in his garden for some of the dead Russians. His son was digging there last summer and found a human leg bone, he said.
The tower block
On Feb 26, Maria Shevchuk watched video of a Russian missile ploughing into a high-rise building in Kyiv. She had fled the capital the day before but recognised it as her family home, where her husband, Mykola, remained on the 24th floor. “I was in shock,” she said. “I tried to ring my husband and, for the first half hour, we couldn’t get through to him. We feared he was dead. But he did call, to say: ‘We don’t have an apartment anymore’.”
He had chosen to sleep in a room away from the side of the block where the missile hit and was spared the worst of the impact. But the missile destroyed the walls and floor, and turned the four storeys below into a ragged hole. Mykola crawled to safety along a ledge next to a huge drop.
A year on, the Shevchuks plan to return to Flat 120, Avenue Valerie Lobanovsky, after Kyiv council rebuilt the block’s upper floors. Its builders, perched next to a drop of hundreds of feet, put in walls, floors and wiring.
Their fish tank, miraculously, survived intact, although the fish starved. “It was scary coming into the flat,” he said. “There were no walls, and if the wind was strong, it could nearly suck you out of the building.”
The Shevchuks plan to move in later this year and have brought a new bath, carpets and a table tennis table that are waiting to be installed. The council paid for the work but they had to spend large amounts of their own money, too. However, they consider themselves fortunate. “Other people have had homes demolished completely,” said Maria. “And many more lost their lives. We’re lucky compared to them.”
The broken bridge
For Alexei Drabkin, the first sounds of war approaching his house, near the suburb of Irpin in western Kyiv, was an explosion that shattered his windows. It turned out to be friendly fire: Ukrainian forces had dynamited a bridge over the River Irpin to slow the Russian advances. It also created one of the enduring images of the war, as residents fleeing Irpin made their way across the ruined bridge on slippery planks. A year on, the bridge is being rebuilt, but parts of the area remains littered with toys, prams and other items abandoned by fleeing families. It has also become a de facto memorial to the civilians who perished in Irpin.
In his 23rd-floor flat overlooking the river, Andrei Shirimira, a classical violinist who trained at Kyiv’s conservatoire, would calm himself and his pet cat by playing his favourite pieces. “She would look at me as if to say: ‘what do we do now?’,” he recalls. “If I kept calm, though, she kept calm.”
Having seen the “apocalyptic” battle from the balcony of his flat, he is amazed and proud Irpin has bounced back. “Nobody imagined we could organise such a defence,” he said.
The Russian helicopter assault
Helicopters dropped paratroopers at Hostomel airport, north-west of Kyiv, to secure an air bridge.
Leonid Lyamlev, 46, who lives nearby, saw troops threatening to “shoot anyone” who came out of their homes. He had good reason to fear the occupiers as he was hiding a friend who had served in Ukraine’s armed forces. “Every day, they would knock at the door and check who was here,” he recalled. “Luckily they never really searched very hard – if they had done, we’d have both been in trouble.”
He and his wife fled Hostomel and returned after a few weeks when Russian forces had been pushed out. Then, he realised the risk he had been taking by sheltering his friend.
“The Kadyrovites found a military guy living near me and tortured him,” he said. “Then, when his wife started screaming, they shot the pair of them.”