Kharkiv. Chronicles of the Attack on the City. Day 35 (30.03.2022)

By Serhiy Petrov

After several days of relative quiet, today came much more shelling. There was a light intensification of muscovite shelling in the morning, reduced to none by midday. The intensity started to gradually increase in the late afternoon, and by the evening the russists went nuts: they were firing at everything, mostly from rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Northern Saltivka and other parts of Saltivka, Obriy, the Kharkiv Tractor Plant neighborhood, Novi Budynky, and Oleksiyivka suffered the most, and there was a hit in the area of ​​Kholodna Gora. They hit something serious in Saltivka: the fire was so large that the glow in the sky could be seen from different parts of the city.

One of the supermarkets in Saltivka. Photo: Nataliya Zubar. Copyright: CC BY-SA 4.0

There was also shelling in the suburbs: Derhachi and the neighboring villages, Chuhuiv and the surrounding area. In Derhachi, the City Council building was destroyed, power lines and substations were damaged, private single-family homes were hit, and fires broke out. One person was killed and at least three were injured. Derhachi also came under heavy fire in the evening. There’s a tense situation in Chuhuiv.

At the same time, the muscovites aren’t showing any ground activity. They just stupidly strike residential areas in order to completely destroy residential buildings and all the infrastructure. Our team of documentarians of muscovite crimes has noted several types of targets the russists tend to hit:

  • Any important administrative buildings 
  • Fuel depots, gas stations, and warehouses, to deprive us of the ability to provide fuel for military equipment and other logistics, both on the front and in the rear
  • Fire brigades, to deprive the population and police departments of the ability to provide assistance
  • Life support systems: electricity, gas pipelines, distribution stations, substations, supply lines
  • Communications (mobile, landline, internet)
  • Sites for distribution of humanitarian aid to the population
  • Supermarkets and markets in the shelled areas
  • Any educational institutions that could be used as bomb shelters, for the purpose of deurbanizing the territory in the future (no education institutions means no families with children)
  • Maternity hospitals and hospitals
  • Transport networks and depots
  • Chaotic shelling of residential buildings, for maximum destruction

In rural areas, the muscovites have been hitting important agricultural buildings and locations of agricultural machinery. The goal is to destroy agriculture, which would lead to famine, in order to capture us after Ukraine is depleted. This is the most difficult sowing campaign, and the next year or two will be the most difficult, considering the damage to agriculture, the number of mined fields, and so on. Meanwhile, only the newly liberated territories are being cleared and demined. 

A muscovite fighter jet and drone were shot down near Kharkiv. Two other planes were shot down in the Kharkiv region. The military is urging everyone not to go from Chuhuiv to Kharkiv and back, because of the risk: everything around has been mined. Today, for example, a car traveling on the road from Chuhuiv to Kharkiv exploded on a mine. As a result, two people were killed and five adults and one child were wounded. The muscovites densely mine the territories they leave. Unfortunately, after the victory, we will be finding such “gifts” for many years to come, and people will explode on untested paths. Do not go into the woods where the russists have been. Forget about it for 10 years for your own safety. This applies not only to Kharkiv, but to all areas that are gradually being liberated from the occupiers.

Meanwhile, various service-sector establishments have been gradually opening up. Yesterday and today there was a meeting of the regional administration about restarting the economy in the region and the city. There are logistical problems. Without public transportation, of course, companies will not be able to work. But public transportation stops may be another target for the occupiers. It could be dangerous to let vehicles into residential areas (which are, in fact, under fire). It’s unclear how to get people to and from work. I have already mentioned the problem with the metro, as the metro depot is in the affected area. Not that I am against relaunching the vehicles, but for now it could be very dangerous. Those who live in the city center are more or less safe (and therefore they support the restoration of public transportation and all). But what about the areas under fire, where most people lived and will live? I don’t know. So far, I have doubts. Especially considering that it was a very loud night. 

Speaking of the economy, many people have left, so opening businesses in these conditions will be difficult. We need to look for new employees and new logistics connections. There are many challenges for Kharkiv’s economy.

The hottest and most difficult point is Izyum. Very heavy battles are raging there. It’s become known that one of the traitors, Anatoliy Fomychvsky, from “opezdezhe” (translator’s note: this is a derogatory reference to the Opposition Platform—For Life party), helped the muscovites, showing them safe directions to enter Izyum from.

A mother and a boy died as a result of the shelling of the village of Slobozhanske in the Balakliya city community. The shelling of Barvinkove ​​and populated areas of the Barvinkove ​​city community continues. This is while on the left bank of the Donets, in the settlements of the Balakliya community, the Armed Forces of Ukraine are fighting to block the Barvinkove direction for russists. And more…

It is already obvious that the forces withdrawing from Kyiv (personally, I believe that one or two more assaults on the city will inevitably take place when they manage to scrape together reinforcements), are being transferred to the Izyum direction, to Rubizhne-Severodonetsk, and other areas of attacks in the Donetsk region, because all attempts to break through have been blocked by our military. The shelling of Rubizhne, Severodonetsk, and Lysychansk is intensifying. There is a difficult situation there, too. An oil depot in Dnipro and a business in Novomoskovsk were hit.

Muscovites have lists of activists and their addresses. In some of the occupied cities, they no longer just detain activists on the streets but go straight to these addresses. And they are not going after only well-known activists. They’re after anyone who has more or less showed signs of being of that mindset in recent years. As I understand it, this is all a product of the “tribunals of Novorosiya,” with the lists of activists supplied by traitors.

The muscovites are trying to mask the successes of our military in some parts of the front by extermination in Kyiv and its environs, as well as Kharkiv, by “nazis,” whose death squads indimidate and shoot civilians. In moscovia itself, many officials at the regional-head level are calling for a complete victory over the Ukrainians.

There are more and more stories about shootings of civilians and rape of women and girls throughout Ukraine. This causes blood to freeze even in my veins, and I’m a rather non-empathetic, rational person. We will definitely take revenge for every ruined fate, every person killed, every ruined house.

In Balakliya, part of the Kharkiv region, which is occupied, a young man tried to drop a tricolor rag from a flagpole above the City Council building, but muscovites fired on him from Kalashnikovs. The boy appears to be alive, but his future is uncertain. But this was a heroic and courageous act!

A full day has passed, but the muscovite Wikipedia hasn’t been blocked in moscovia. They are not going to remove the article about the muscovite invasion of Ukraine or change it. Why are you guys backpedaling? Blocking Wikipedia must be too scary.

Today’s Darwin Award goes to muscovites from Belgorod and Kursk, who were so scared that they shat their pants after the Ukrainian invasion of their social networks. Authorities of the Kursk region were forced to announce that there would be no air strikes and shelling, telling people to keep calm. Also today, landmines were deployed in Belgorod’s administrative buildings, courts, and media offices. They even found something resembling explosives in one spot, but it’s not certain. What a scare!

Let us help our military, let us support volunteers, medics, rescuers, and public utility workers. Let us take care of each other and bring the day of our victory closer!

How to support us?

donate You can help us by sending money to PayPal of our Chair nataliyazubar@maidanua.org or to the account of our Organization Maidan Monitoring Information Center https://maidan.org.ua/en/supportmmic/.
About Сергій Петров 249 Articles
історик, аналітик Інформаційного Центру "Майдан Моніторинг" (сайт "Майдан"), громадський активіст, редактор української Вікіпедії