By Serhiy Petrov
Muscovite forces continue shelling Kharkiv, causing injuries and destruction of buildings. The most affected are the northern outskirts of the city. Shelling of the northern suburbs of Kharkiv also continues. The regional authorities are finally talking about a need to build defensive fortifications around Kharkiv, along the border of Kharkiv region. The metro is being launched in the city, but not all people have been relocated from some subway stations. Peaceful life is gradually being established in the liberated eastern suburbs. Kidnappings and torture of people in the temporarily occupied territories of the region.
Shelling in the northern outskirts of Kharkiv struck Pivnichna Saltivka, Velyka Danylivka, and Pyatykhatky. According to the Kharkiv regional administration, two people were injured as a result of ruscist shelling. The strikes are singular and not intense. The overall amount of shelling is very low compared to the previous periods, with the exception of the short period in mid-May, when there were a few days with either no shelling at all or just a few strikes per day.
The northern suburbs that remain under fire include Ruski Tyshky, Cherkasky Tyshky, Tsyrkuny, Pytomnyk, Ruska Lozova, Prudyanka, Slatyne, their environs, as well as Derhachi.
Fighting continues to the north and northeast of Kharkiv. There is almost no official information about its course. I am not going to say anything on the matter because there are different versions of events.
In an unequivocally positive piece of news, Oleg Sinegubov, head of the Kharkiv Regional State Administration, says that a new phase of “big construction” should begin for Kharkiv. It will be the construction of reliable fortifications to further prevent muscovite troops from advancing toward Kharkiv and to defend the Kharkiv Region along its border. This is the right decision. Finally, there’s an official announcement. Activists including our organization, Maidan Monitoring Information Center, drew attention to this need earlier, saying that Kharkiv should become a fortress city.
The rubble blocking entry to buildings in different parts of the city is being cleared. Rescuers said more than 150 bodies have been pulled out from the rubble and more than 250 people have been rescued. Rescuers have so far completed work on 98 debris removal sites. They have confirmed that the most affected areas are the northern and southeastern suburbs of Kharkiv: Saltivka, Selyshche Zhukovskoho, Pyatykhatky, Obriy, and Rohan. Meanwhile, the demining of the city is about 90% complete. But from my understanding this only concerns buildings. There can still be mines in forests, fields, and so on, so walking there can be dangerous. Many of the mined areas are located in the liberated suburbs of Kharkiv.
There’s a plan to launch all metro lines in Kharkiv on May 24. However, the fate of some 60 people living at one of the Saltivka metro stations—people who lost their homes due to shelling—still has not been decided. With only one day left before the launch, this is a state of affairs we’ve all come to expect. But mayor Terekhov’s people are not worried. He’s only concerned about things like appropriating the budget and so on. He only worried about the people when the time came to increase the volume of humanitarian aid sent to Kharkiv. (There are already legends going around about the scale of humanitarian aid theft committed by the city authorities.)
Some people also go down to the metro at night, fearing night shelling in Saltivka. It’s not clear how metro stations will be organized at night for residents of the northern districts of the city who want to come there for the night. The city authorities have not answered this question, giving an impression that they want to avoid it, that the danger is minimal.
Kharkiv city officials have stated that they plan to demolish 491 homes. But it’s not clear whether such statements are based on approximate estimates, inspection of the buildings by a special commission, or simply the desire to start using the reconstruction money right away. Just a reminder that Zhitlobud-1, which has started to build housing for those who have lost it, is connected to the city authorities’ schemes.
It’s funny that Terekhov has declared that Kharkiv can be rebuilt in two or three years. It took longer than 15 years to rebuild it after the Second World War. For example, construction on the sites of destroyed buildings continued until the end of the 1950s, and only in 1959 did new districts begin to be built: Pavlove Pole and what is now Novi Budynki. Apparently, he hopes that the money will flow like a river. Use of the funds will require strict control by our partners and the public.
Kharkiv is adjusting to the life of a frontline city. In the cafes, even now, one mostly sees either troops or journalists. There is not much work. How the situation will change after the launch of the subway remains to be seen, but there is no excessive optimism about things changing greatly over the next two to three weeks. Businesses are very careful. It all depends on the situation on the frontline and the muscovite shelling of Kharkiv.
The liberated post offices in Mala Rohan and Vilkhivka have reopened. There is a mobile post office site in Vilkhivka . People are receiving their pensions, and humanitarian aid distribution sites are being set up. Earlier, vehicles with humanitarian aid arrived and it was promptly distributed directly from the cars. People took aid for themselves and for their neighbors.
For some reason the regional authorities continue to stubbornly describe Chuhuiv as “liberated.” The city was actually semi encircled. It’s true that some of its suburbs were under muscovite control from late February to early March, but Chuhuiv itself was never occupied by the ruscists. Two bridges have been destroyed in the city (to prevent the occupiers from entering) as have three multi-story apartment buildings and 15 single-family homes. Additionally, 117 buildings are damaged.
Fighting continues in the southeast of the region, in the Slovyansk and Barvinkove directions. Our soldiers are holding defenses, and the muscovites are “regrouping” and waiting for reinforcements to resume their attack on Slovyansk.
The situation is difficult in the temporarily occupied territories of the Kharkiv region. Exits from the occupied territories are blocked, including the roads residents of those territories have been using to leave. Kidnappings continue. For example, on May 17 in Balakliya, the pastor of the Light of the Gospel Evangelical Baptist Church, Oleksander Salfetnikov, was abducted. He and his parishioners had decided to remain in the occupied territory. It is known that he is being tortured. He is being severely beaten and needs to be hospitalized. The muscovites want to beat a confession out of him that he works for American intelligence (a typical attitude toward other ruscist Christian denominations) and has corrupted children and youth.
Finally, the muscovites are strengthening their defensive positions around Izium and on the Siverskyi Donets side in the Kupyansk direction: in Velykyi Burluk and the town of Shevchenkove. Each of the two settlements is a center of a village hromada.
Halyna Turbaba, head of the Dvorichna Hromada, has been abducted in the village of Dvorichna, which has been under occupation since the first day of the large-scale invastion. She has been under “arrest” for four days and hasn’t been heard from.
In the village of Cherneschyna, Borivska Hromada, the occupiers dismantled a Duster medical vehicle for spare parts.
The 80th assault brigade has shot down a Su-25 attack aircraft somewhere in the fields above Ukraine. The pilot did not eject. But that is not all. According to preliminary information, the pilot was the muscovite Major General Kanamat Botashev. They say he had a bad reputation and had been fired for crashing planes. Obviously there aren’t enough pilots now, so they had reinstated him.
Things aren’t calm in moscovia. There was another explosion around Tiotkino, in the Kursk region. They’ll just have to get used to it.
German journalists have begun to dig into a fertile topic: the preponderance of ruscist neonazis in the muscovite army. This is really a Klondike of everything. Many of them have been seen among the POWs captured by Ukraine’s military. They fought against the “neonazi Azov” but showed to the world who the real neonazis were, complete with the corresponding views, social and political movements, and support from the government. The Darwin Award will gradually find its heroes in these investigations.
Let us believe in our defenders! Thank you for all your efforts! We will definitely win!
