I arrived in Kharkiv by minibus from Dnipro on a hot summer’s day at the end of June 2024. I had briefly visited the city a year earlier (see post of 6 September 2023). I had been struck then by how, despite the widespread destruction, the city was very much alive, and people continued to go about their daily lives. Walking out of the bus station, a short distance from the city centre, the destruction of war was immediately evident. Shattered buildings with boarded up windows, what had once been rooms now exposed to the open air. There are many streets like that in Kharkiv.
Strolling through the central Shevchenko Park an hour or so later, between manicured lawns and beautifully kept flowerbeds, it was easy to imagine that all was well with Kharkiv. The covered-up statue of Shevchenko, for protection against missile strikes, was, however, a reminder that it was a precarious well-being. And then, all of a sudden, there was a tremendous bang. Unprepared for such a noise, I jumped slightly. A small group of children quickened their pace. But most Kharkiv residents just carried on walking or chatting with their friends on park benches. This was the kind of everyday experience that after two years of war was barely even noticed by the citizens of Kharkiv, inured to the noises of Russia’s war of terror against their city. I later learned that the bang emanated from the small town of Derhachi, just to the northwest of Kharkiv, which has been savagely mauled by repeated Russian strikes.
Kharkiv carries on with its life. People go to work, meet friends for coffee, go out for family dinners. But the war is inescapable. Air raid alarms are a familiar fact of life all over wartime Ukraine. But during my few days in Kharkiv, there were air raid alerts almost all the time. They were so frequent, that it became hard to remember in any moment whether there was an air raid alert or not. Apart from the missiles and drones lobbed at the city, sometimes in the background the dull thuds of artillery fire could be heard. A few weeks before my arrival, Russia had launched a new incursion north of Kharkiv, seizing a few villages. Ukraine’s defenders had held firm, and the Russians had not got very far. But the fighting was still going on.
Destruction in central Kharkiv
The city centre is scarred by missile strikes. Almost every street has damaged buildings, the result of missile or drone strikes, often in clusters. Some have windows boarded up, having been blown out by nearby explosions. Others have been completely wrecked by direct hits. The regional administration building stands empty and forlorn on the central Freedom Square, having been struck by a missile in the early days of the Russian invasion. Several other buildings around it are also wrecked. This is the backdrop to peoples’ lives in Kharkiv. Life carries on, but after more than two years, the strain of living with Russian terror must take its toll.
In the northern-most suburbs, the destruction is even worse. During the early months of the invasion, in 2022, Saltivka district, in north-east Kharkiv, had been shelled on a daily basis. When I visited, on a hot Friday morning, around the metro station the streets bustled with life. Street traders sold ripe fruit, vegetables and flowers. Butchers did a thriving trade, as did kiosks selling pirogi, pies stuffed with meat, potato, cheese or cabbage. Walking a little further, I came to a picturesque lake, surrounded by trees. Men fished, children fed the ducks, and people bathed in the cool water, a refuge from the stifling heat. A pleasant weekend scene on a hot summer’s day. But walking further on into Saltivka, there were more and more buildings with boarded up windows, pock-marked by shrapnel.
Saltivka
And then the landscape changed altogether. One moment walking among buildings still inhabited, windows boarded up, but still serviceable. People sitting outside the blocks of flats, chatting with friends, others carrying home their weekend shopping. And the next moment, no more than a hundred metres on, a shattered scene of wrecked buildings, broken, crushed, burned out, collapsed. Every single building damaged. Children’s playgrounds now overgrown with vegetation, schools wrecked and boarded up. No more children. A place of desolation, empty, the people gone, no longer habitable. Outside one block of flats, an elderly lady tending her flowerbeds, a hold-out, too old, too set in her ways to move to a safer place. Amidst these abandoned, broken buildings, with no electricity or water, nature is already re-asserting itself. First it is the overgrown weeds. Soon, if the people do not return, new trees will start to sprout.
Close to the Russian border, Kharkiv is particularly vulnerable to Russian strikes. During Russia’s spring cross-border offensive north of Kharkiv, Ukrainians were beside themselves with frustration that, while the Russians launched attacks from just over the border, western countries would not allow them to use weapons they had supplied to strike back at the places from which the attacks emanated. Russian planes could launch their glide bombs across the border, knowing the Ukrainians could do nothing about it. The Russians could rain down terror on Ukrainian towns and villages with impunity, because western countries tied the hands of Ukraine’s defenders.
An attack on 25 May on a DIY hardware store and a residential area, killing and injuring several people, was widely reported internationally, and caused particular shock. People going about their weekend shopping ripped apart by Russian missiles. But this was the daily experience of Kharkiv. Finally, at the end of May it was reported that the US government had given Ukraine limited permission for strikes against Russian targets just across the border. This appeared to make an immediate difference, and the pressure on Kharkiv let up somewhat. But still, Ukraine was forbidden to use western weapons for deep strikes against Russian military targets. And Kharkiv residents continued to be subjected to frequent missile strikes.
A few days after my arrival, I was sitting in the park when there was another big bang. As before, people didn’t even look up. I later learned that a depot of the logistics company, Nova Poshta, a kind of Ukrainian UPS, had been hit. Again, Kharkiv residents carried on with whatever they were doing. But we should not accept that this becomes normalised. It should not be acceptable that western countries leave Ukrainians to face the barrages of Russian missiles and drones, wringing our hands every now and then when there is a particularly deadly attack, but otherwise leaving Ukrainians to confront it alone. More than two years into the war, why is Ukraine still lacking sufficient air defences, having to make impossible choices about whether to protect cities or frontline positions, which cities to protect, and which not? Why are Ukrainians still far outgunned by the Russians invaders when it comes to artillery shells? And why do we still tie Ukrainians’ hands behind their backs and deny them permission to use the weapons we provide to strike military targets deep inside Russia? Enough of this half-hearted support. Enough of leaving Ukrainians to pay the price for our angst about Russian escalation. Give Ukrainians what they need to defeat this evil.
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