The Times - UK (2022-05-27)

the times | Friday May 27 2022 31

There could hardly be a more bucolic

spot than the village of Verkhnya

Rohanka, east of Kharkiv. Two lanes

dotted with irises run along the tops of

parallel rises amid rolling hills, a pond

sits in the cleft between them.

Along the lanes wander Vyacheslav

Borisov’s goats, and Oleksandr Rud-

ych’s chickens cluck in his yard. But the

angry buzzing of Stanislav Tarasenko’s

bees indicate where the Russians

smashed their hives.

It is a village of stolid, middle-aged

men, and when you talk to them, they

burst into tears. For Rudych, 68, the

moment came when he recalled the

mock execution he endured in March,

at the hands of the enemy soldiers.

“They put me on my knees here in

the yard, and shot the ground in front

of me. The tank commander had a

machinegun. They even shot my stick.”

The soldiers then dragged him out

through the gate, across the lane and up

the hillside where they made him kneel

again. “They said: ‘Say your last

prayers’. I was asking why. They said I

had been providing information to the

Ukrainian army, but I said I didn’t un-

derstand what was going on. My phone

didn’t even have a signal.”

The commander let him go, but told

him to leave the village, adding: “I will

give you three hours. If I come back and

find you here, I will shoot you and de-

stroy your house.”

It was a realistic threat. The Russians

have since withdrawn from the edges of

Kharkiv but the war has left destruc-

tion in its wake. Village after village has

burnt-out houses and traumatised

people who have finally emerged from

their bunkers. Verkhnya Rohanka lies

on the edge of a zone which the Russian

artillery continues to pound.

Rudych survived the mock execution

— but his ordeal was far from over. He

Kremlin-backed breakaway territories

in eastern Ukraine will hold referen-

dums on joining Russia once the

entirety of the Donbas region has been

captured, the leader of the Donetsk

separatist state has said.

Comments by Denis Pushilin give a

clear indication that Moscow intends to

annex tracts of Ukrainian territory

during the war, despite claims by Presi-

dent Putin that Russia aims only to

“de-Nazify” the country.

Earlier this month, the Kremlin-

installed authorities in occupied Kher-

son, southern Ukraine, said that they

intended to soon become a “federal

subject” of Russia.

Pushilin said the results of any future

referendum on the Donetsk and Lu-

hansk People’s Republics (DPR and

LPR) joining Russia would be “quite

Separatists promise to hold referendum

obvious”. He added: “But it would be

more sensible to start putting them into

practice once we have achieved the

constitutional borders of the Donetsk

and Luhansk People’s Republics.

Everything in its own time”.

Leonid Pasechnik, the Luhansk sepa-

ratist leader, has also stated his inten-

tion to hold a referendum on joining

Russia. The industrial region comprises

the Luhansk and Donetsk provinces,

which declared independence from

Ukraine in 2014 following the Maidan

revolution. Three days before the

invasion, Russia officially recognised

the DPR and the LPR as independent

states, becoming the first United

Nations member state to do so.

After failing to seize Ukraine’s capital

Kyiv or its second city, Kharkiv, Russia

is trying to wrest full control of Donbas

on behalf of separatists.

Putin has sent thousands of troops

into the region, attacking from three

sides in an attempt to encircle Ukraini-

an forces in the city of Severodonetsk.

The capture of the city would leave the

whole of Luhansk in Russian hands.

Speaking to Russian state media

yesterday, Pushilin, who became leader

of the DPR in 2018, called on Moscow

to accelerate its offensive in Donbas.

He said that in the occupied area of

the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions,

authorities had introduced the Russian

rouble and were in the process of imple-

menting a new tax system. Before the

war, Pushilin was a sales manager who

gained infamy for his involvement in a

pyramid scheme popular in African

countries. He is the subject of sanctions

from the EU and the US.

The DPR and LPR use both the rou-

ble and the Ukrainian hryvnia. The

separatist states are heavily reliant on

Russian financial aid.

Tom Ball

of death in blockaded Odesa

on for a very long time and these

animals are in the middle of it and they

can’t feed themselves.”

Volunteer vets had to sedate the two

adult males, five females and two cubs

and stretcher them into a convoy of

reinforced cages for a 25-hour drive

across international borders and

checkpoints to a safari park in north-

eastern Romania.

Keeping the family group of nine

together was the priority, but this

limited the options about their “for ev-

er” home, De Lange said.

His sanctuary in South Africa, the

Simbonga Game Reserve, will take in

two lions rescued from another zoo in

Ukraine at the beginning of the war.

“But there is no room for a nine-strong

pride,” he said, A large zoo in Colorado

could be the best bet if permission to

export the animals is granted.

The lions are still “de-stressing” in

their crates after the arduous road trip,

the first time any of them had travelled.

They were expected to be calm enough

to be allowed to begin exploring the

grassy paddock at their temporary

refuge yesterday.

The British army veteran said he had

set up his animal charity after his

ex-military dog helped him to recover

following his medical discharge from

the British army with PTSD. He told the

Daily Mail: “It was an animal that saved

my life. I understand the true beauty

and value of animals and I wanted to

make sure I could save their lives, which

is why we are in Ukraine.”

Animals at Kyiv’s zoo were caught up

in the first days of the war in Ukraine.

Keepers had to sedate an elephant left

terrified by explosions and warning

sirens that blared throughout the day.

Staff moved in to the zoo with their

families to reassure the animals.

Village haunted by terror

of Russian mock execution

packed a small bag, picked up his stick,

and began to walk towards Kharkiv. At

the Russian checkpoint he met the

commander again. To get past the

checkpoint, he had to traverse a series

of tank traps; eight lines of wire, one

after the other, with mines hanging off

them suspended by their detonators.

Rudych, not a thin man, had to crawl

under them, trying to avoid setting

them off. The Russian soldiers came

out of their tanks to watch, a new form

of spectator sport. “I pushed my stick

and bag in front of me, and crawled

through on my belly,” Rudych said.

“The soldiers said, ‘Where are you

going, Grandad?’ I said I was going to

Kharkiv. They pointed out the mines

and said, ‘Let’s see how you get on’.”

He made it. After walking all night,

crossing through fields to skirt both

Russian and Ukrainian armies in the

darkness, he crossed the ring road in

the early morning and at 9am arrived in

the city, where his daughter lives.

He had made it to safety, but the few

dozen families still in Verkhnya Rohan-

ka were about to experience what hap-

pens when your home is suddenly on

the front lines. One day the Russians,

under pressure from Ukrainian forces

in the southeast, suddenly began to

move men out. But first they looted.

“We lost everything,” said Volodym-

yr Horbaniov, 59, who managed the

farm with the pond at the bottom of the

valley. The Russians took everything,

from tractors to watches. Some stole

clothes, the villagers said, putting them

on to cover their uniforms as they ran

not only from the fighting but from

the war. They had already killed

all the fish in the pond, Horbaniov

said, throwing in grenades as a

primitive way of catching them.

Sensing their opportunity,

the Ukrainian troops were

staging a counter-offensive.

The Russian artillery had

been using its positions in vil-

lages such as Verkhnya Ro-

hanka to shell Kharkiv, and this was a

chance to move out of range.

They mounted a fighting withdrawal.

Their tanks had been positioned all

around the village and their tracks are

still visible, leading from the lanes into

the trees and fields between the houses.

They were firing even as they retreat-

ed, said Vyacheslav Borisov, 45. His wife

Svitlana, 35, bundled their eight-year-

old son into the bunker behind the

farmyard, then she went and found her

mother and pushed her in too.

She went back up the steps to close

the door just as the first shell exploded

over the house.

Shrapnel screamed into the yard, a

piece lodging in her arm as she pulled

the door shut. A second shell went

through the roof of the house.

“It was chaos,” she said. “The tanks

were shooting in every direction.”

Then it was all over. A Ukrainian

tank came through, and the Russians

were gone.

The houses on the northern hilltop

are all destroyed, and the evidence of

Russian occupation is visible all around

— abandoned grenades, mattresses

and ration packs.

The damage on the south side is

more sporadic, but still extensive. Stan-

islav Tarasenko, 47, who spent the occu-

pation elsewhere, has come back and is

putting in new beehives. The bodies of

the Russian dead, said to have been kept

in the basement of a house on the north

side, have gone.

As we arrived, a damaged Russian

tank was being towed away.

The villagers are waiting for the

bomb disposal squad to come and

check their homes for mines before

they dare move back in. In

the meantime, they sur-

vey the wreckage of

their lives.

The Borisovs

have sent their son

and his grand-

mother to rela-

tives in Kharkiv.

When we ask how

the boy is doing, it is

Vyacheslav’s turn to

melt, turn his

back, and cry.

t

W

t

V

b

Oleksandr Rudych was

made to kneel while a

Russian soldier put a gun

to his head and told him:

“Say your last prayers”

French diplomats up in

arms at Macron reforms

Page 34

Texas shooting survivors

tell how they followed

drills to flee gunman

Page 33

Farmer told to say his

prayers cannot forget

trauma of Putin’s

invasion, writes

Richard Spencer

pockmarked with artillery strikes in the struggle to drive off Ukrainian defenders

PAVEL KLIMOV/REUTERS