In early October, the Ukrainian army continued its counteroffensive in the Kherson region, liberating several villages held for seven months by the Russian army. This is the case of Bilyaivka, in the Kherson region, about twenty kilometers from the front.
Carcasses of burned tanks, unexploded rockets planted in the fields: everything here bears witness to the violence of the fighting. And the trauma of the Russian occupation is on everyone’s mind.
“What did they do? It’s not human. Are men capable of doing that? Who gave them the right to do that?”, life and the looting of her house. “It was so hard to live.”
hidden in caves
This woman now lives in the greatest destitution. “There is no more heating, there is no more electricity, and running water rarely comes,” she says. “But luckily sometimes it rains and we can drink the rainwater. That’s how we live.”
Natalya was also unable to run away from the fight. For seven months she endured shootings between Russians and Ukrainians and it was in her small basement that she sheltered from the bombing. “We took warm clothes and waited until the shelling stopped,” she said.
“Now is a moment of joy, I am relieved. Everything is finally over and we are free,” Natalya told BFMTV.
But in Bilyaivka, as in other previously occupied villages, reconstruction and a return to normality will take a long time: more than half of the inhabitants have not yet returned.
Source: BFM TV
