The Times - UK (2022-04-28)

10 Thursday April 28 2022 | the times

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the space programme, though it is now

much reduced in scale. Gennady’s wife,

Tatiana, 70, is a retired teacher. His

daughter, Olena, is an accountant.

The family have lived lives that have

been profoundly shaped by Russia,

from where Gennady Sydorov’s grand-

parents came and whose language they

speak. The border is 20 miles away —

close enough for fraternal solidarity

and easily within artillery range.

Now the Russians are one by one de-

stroying apartment blocks built under

their rule and occupied by people who

were loyal to the values they espoused.

For the Sydorovs, the shock is palpable.

“We called them brothers,” Olena

Sydorov said. “Now they are bombing

the graves of people who died in the

Second World War.” Her mother’s only

intervention in the conversation was to

say: “I would throttle Putin myself.”

Every family had a similar story. Ihor

Terekhov, the mayor of Kharkiv, said

there were 8,000 of these Soviet-built

high-rise apartment blocks in Kharkiv.

So far 2,100 have been hit by airstrikes

or artillery.

“Who could have imagined when

they were built that this would be how

they ended up,” he said, in an interview

conducted in a government bunker

where he now runs the city’s adminis-

tration from deep below the city centre.

Kharkiv, like many Soviet towns, was

rebuilt after the war with defences

against nuclear attack, from which they

are now benefiting.

On his morning walks, Gennady

Sydorov climbs the stairs to the apart-

ment — there is no electricity for the lift

— to try to clean up. So far he has

carried down 30 bin bags of rubble and

glass and broken furniture and orna-

ments.

It is something to do while he waits to

see what will happen next. The sup-

posed end date of the war has been put

back a couple more months by the

Ukrainian military authorities, but this

week the British Ministry of Defence

said in its estimate it could continue all

year.

Whether it is mentally or physically

feasible for the Sydorovs, the 800 other

Metro villagers, and the tens of thou-

sands of people hiding underground

elsewhere in Kharkiv to last that long in

the Stygian gloom is hard to say.

Zoya Demchenko, 70, her daughter

Natalia, 47, and their neighbour Olga

Mospan, 60, moved into the station

with their cats Basik and Kuzia after

their flats took a direct hit on March 17.

They were in the basement shelter at

the time. It was the only conceivable

option because the basement was clear-

ly not safe, but they had swapped a

small prison for a larger, albeit safer

one. “We try not to think about the

future, if the war isn’t over by the end of

May,” Mospan said. “We don’t want to

leave here, but we do want to go back

home.” In the meantime they tie the

cats’ legs to their cat-boxes, huddle

under their quilts, and wait for the war

to pass overhead.

The two separatist regions in eastern

Ukraine are to hold referendums on

becoming part of Russia next month,

according to Kremlin sources.

The Donetsk People’s Republic

(DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Re-

public (LPR) broke away from Ukraine

with Russian support in the aftermath

of the Maidan revolution in 2014.

Russia recognised the DPR and LPR as

independent states on February 21 this

year, three days before the invasion.

The two republics will vote on

Separatist regions to vote on joining Moscow

whether to join Russia on May 14 and

15, three sources close to President

Putin told Meduza, an independent

Russian-language news site. There will

also be a referendum in Kherson,

southern Ukraine, to decide if the occu-

pied region should be become inde-

pendent, the publication reported.

In 2014, both republics recorded

support for independence of around 90

per cent, amid allegations of fraud.

The referendums on joining Russia

had been due to take place in April, but

the date was moved because Russian

forces had not made sufficient headway

into Ukrainian territory. The sources

said that many within the Kremlin were

against annexation of the two repub-

lics, describing them as depressed

regions. However, annexation was a

“personal desire” of Putin’s.

President Zelensky has warned

Ukrainian citizens in Kherson not to

provide Russian occupiers with their

personal details, predicting that they

would try to hold a staged referendum.

People in the city have repeatedly

defied the occupation by raising the

Ukrainian flag above the town square

and facing down Russian tanks.

Tom Ball

The Kharkiv Metro is now home to 800 people displaced by the Russian bombing campaign, including Olga Mospan, left,

News War in Ukraine

Two days in

the Metro

turns into

two months

Most of the residents are elderly,

lacking transport to flee elsewhere, and

also the will to abandon their homes to

the Russian bombardment. The Sydo-

rovs have nowhere else to go.

In the mornings, there is often a

pause in the shelling, so the residents

venture into the daylight for a walk and

to check which of their flats have sur-

vived the night.

Saltivka is a sea of Soviet-era apart-

ment buildings, built in the 1970s. The

Sydorovs moved in when they were

new, and never left. Now they have the

remains of a Grad missile in their sitting

room and a picture on their phones of

flames shooting out over the balcony.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, is its

most Soviet in style, rebuilt along Sta-

linist lines after the destruction of the

Second World War and crammed with

arms factories and scientific institutes.

Heroiv Pratsi means Heroes of Labour

in Ukrainian; it is Heroi Truda in Rus-

sian, which most people speak here.

Gennady Sydorov might have been a

Hero of Soviet Labour himself had the

Soviet Union survived. He is a precision

toolmaker and was still working when

the war broke out, in the same factory

that he joined 55 years ago on leaving

school at 17.

The factory made high-tech compo-

nents for the Soviet arms industry and

Families who sought

shelter underground

thought it would soon

be over but their homes

have been bombed and

there is no end

in sight, writes

Richard Spencer

d v

s

cer

The apartment blocks of northern
Kharkiv stare out in serried ranks at the
Russian lines five miles away, their grey
faces pock-marked with the acne of
war.
Almost every one is scarred with
large black spots where missiles and
cluster bomblets have come through
windows and walls.
Their residents are underground.
Many hide in the basement shelters, but
800 people now live permanently by
the tracks of Saltivka district’s Metro
station, on Heroiv Pratsi Street.
The Sydorov family thought it best to
go down for the night as the first shells
landed on February 24, the day the Rus-
sians invaded. They have been there ev-
er since.
“We thought it would be a couple of
days at most,” Gennady Sydorov, 72,
said. “Instead it’s been days and weeks.”
Everyone in the station knew it was
the 62nd day of the war. There is little
else to do in the Metro but wait and
count.
Kharkiv has faced many struggles
over the past century, and it shows in
the battered overcoats lined up at the
volunteers’ serving tables, though it is
harsh to expect anyone to look their
best after two months underground.
Some families have brought down
tents. Others have created sitting
rooms out of cardboard boxes, like the
Sydorovs, and sit and knit or chat. Some
stay in a train carriage pulled up on one
side, painted in the livery of FC Metal-
ist, the local first division football club.