06/06/2022
Villages in Chernihiv Region were under occupation for over a month. The Russians tortured, kidnapped, shot people. Oksana Zhuk from Shestovytsia tells us how Russian soldiers robbed them and drove them out of their house.
“It started at one in the afternoon, crazy shooting. My eldest ran up to me, ‘Tanks!’ Everyone hid, we sat in the cellar all day. It was dark already, five in the evening, and suddenly a car stalled on the road, an Ural. Loud roaring, we heard it from the cellar. We sit and pray, please let them start it and leave.
“And so we sit, when they open the door and say, ‘Anyone here? Let’s throw a grenade.’
“They went downstairs, pointed a rifle at my husband, my eldest son, and my youngest. They asked why we weren’t soldiers. The little ones raised their small hands, crying, ‘Don’t shoot, uncle.’ He told us to come out of the cellar. We came out, shaking, one of them pointed the gun at me, like, go to the house, show us what you got. I opened the house, they looked around, said, ‘We won’t harm you.’ They brought some canned meat to feed the kids, but we said, ‘Thank you, we don’t need anything.’
“There was this Buryat from Siberia, father of many kids. He said, ‘Don’t worry, I have three sons of my own.’ And I said, ‘So why did you come here to fight if you have kids?’ All of them as one kept saying they were mobilized for an exercise, they didn’t know they were going to war. The second day after arrival, they cleaned out our stores—and started giving kids toys from the store. Such softies, such good soldiers!
“They took my eldest son’s iPhone right in the cellar. They said they were gonna check it and give it back. I asked, I begged, but nobody gave it back. One of them would come to our place to wash up, a tall one with blue eyes. The rest would just wash up outside, but he needed to do it in the house, and we’d give him a towelie. He was their boss, so I said, ‘When are you gonna give my son his phone back?’ ‘I give you my word as an officer, we’ll give it back.’ Goddamn officer, he never kept his word.
“On the second of March, we were in another cellar. We thought we’d never come out, we said goodbye to life, so strong was the shelling. And by nine at night, all of them left for the forest. As they were driving past, one came to the cellar, pointed a rifle at my husband and said, ‘Give me two bags of potatoes and compote.’ He took two jars of compote, two bags of potatoes, and then he came back asking for the third bag. And he shot a few chickens, threw them in.
“Then those ones left, and by morning another gang came. Even more equipment, and so aggressive. They knocked out our door, broke the window and started robbing us, taking everything of value. They threw everything out of the house and settled in it. Shot like 15 chickens. They robbed the entire neighborhood. And they lived here until the ninth of March.
“They had these chevrons with hammers and sickles, and green automatic guns with silencers. These ones were cruel. They said, ‘Phones!” And I said, ‘But yesterday your people took them. Your crew, only in different uniforms. They had red Scotch tape, and you have chevrons. Do you think we’re so rich that we can give out phones every day?’
“They started taking out our belongings. Brought a huge Ural motorbike with a red cross and put everything from the house on it. Starting with cereals, salt and so on. Spoons, plates, ladles, whatever clothes they needed, bags, a pack of toilet paper. We stood there, well, what could we do, they had guns, there were many of them.
“They drove over our fence, ‘cause their tanks crossed over there, through the gardens. The Ural crushed the barn roof because it couldn’t fit in the yard. So many of them lived here. We asked them to leave the house because we have little kids. ‘No, we have instructions to be at this point, look for another house,’ they said. They said that if we’re quiet and follow all their instructions, they wouldn’t touch us. Our men had to walk around the village with buckets, as if to get water. ‘If you wanna live, carry a bucket around,’ they said.
“On the ninth of March, they finally left our house, ‘cause we’d been living in our neighbor’s cellar. We went back, put our things back in. The house was empty, they just slept on the floor. They took our firewood, heated the house with it. All the soldiers were fed from our cellar, our planting potatoes were all around the neighborhood. We still can’t find some of our things. One of them even took my mom’s boots and drove off, leaving his combat boots.”
Recorded by Old khata project. Illustrated by Dasha Klochko.
