Украинке Виктории из оккупированного Скадовска

Молю явись, изящной и невинной,
Скрывая наготу, под кружева...
Покроет ступни ног, пух тополиный,
Закружиться от танца, голова...
Появятся, исчезнут полутени,
Беззвучный силуэт твой проскользил...
Пусть волос обожжёт закат осенний,
A небо скажет, хочешь, что, проси...

А сумерки дрожа словно портьера,
В себя впитают все твои шаги...
Сокрыты горизонтом Кордильеры,
Внемли в себя их зов, и сбереги...
Безлунна ночь и стынут твои кисти,
Густой туман расставил зеркала...
Так мягко стелют павшие вниз листья,
Скрыв под собой прошедшие дела...

Пленён тобой, и я не рвусь из плена,
Но душу чувства раздирают в кровь...
Пусть тленен я, зато Она нетленна,
Великая и вечная Любовь...
Увы, сумы я не наполнил златом,
Твой образ продолжая лицезреть...
Себя сравнил я с антиквариатом,
Зажжённым, и желающим сгореть...

Пусть чувства оплетают сердце вязью,
Пусть зазвучат натянутой струной...
Я не позволю им смешаться с грязью,
Пойду, оставив всё, что за спиной...
Ты ждёшь меня, в томительной истоме,
При свете тихо плачущей луны...
Одна в пустом, пространном, тёмном доме,
Лежишь и ждёшь, когда вернутся сны...

Моим дыханьем сон твой не нарушен,
Над твоим ложем царствует покой...
И знаешь ты, насколько тебе нужен,
Хрустальный мост, над бурною рекой...
Запутанных мыслей моих тропинки,
Как в ризы облекаются в слова...
Души моей разбитой, половинки,
В одно сложить, сумею ли едва...

Ты Божий дар, ты мне с Небес награда,
Ты мой оазис, меж пустынных лет...
Любви тепло, вот всё что в жизни надо,
Чтоб на вопросы получить ответ...
Даже когда души с душою трение,
Приносит боль и сердце тяготит...
Перед Всевышним преклоню колени,
И это мне никто не запретит...

Твоих волос спадающую гладь,
Хочу коснуться обнажённой кожей...
Я жду, но сердце истомилось ждать,
Взываю к Небу, верю Бог поможет...
Ты мне позволила, тебя любить,
И этим обрекла меня на муки...
В душе зародыш зачат, хочет жить,
Хоть и придушен схватками разлуки...

Вода предродовая истекла,
Любовь готова вырваться наружу...
Ты ангел мой, распущенны крыла,
Под сенью их, сокрытый я от стужи...
Тепло с тобой мне даже под дождём,
Когда любовь скрывается за тучи...
Когда порой мы порознь идём,
В надежде, что нам скоро станет лучше...

Порой то плакать хочется, то петь,
Или застыть, на самой первой ноте...
Свинцом обид, наполнить пули медь,
И в кобуре держать курок на взводе...
Что учат нас, ушедшие в века,
Как они жили избегая драмы...
Вкусив благих дней, мёда, молока,
Наследье Сима, отделив от Хама...

Не допускали в жизнь, передряг,
Покрыв плащом, всех прошлых ран отрепья...
Как просто в ссору превратить пустяк,
Особенно когда есть что-то, третье...
Унылый дух, причина всех причин,
В веках ещё Екклесиаст подметил...
Дожив до глубины своих морщин,
Он нам оставил наставленья, детям...

Любовь сильна, хоть годы нас и гнут,
Встречается нам лютый зверь, и дикий...
Блаженства пряник ждём, познавши кнут,
В долинах скороспелой земляники...
Внимаю взором жадно красоту,
Собою ты меня давно сразила...
Я пересёк запретную черту,
Как Исаак, бегу от Измаила...

И хоть порой, по кругу этот бег,
Или по колесу, подобно белке...
Я прячу горе, за фасадный смех,
Всегда, везде готовый к перестрелке...
Но ты, моя причина вне причин,
И торжество разрыва, причин-следствий...
Надежды, Веры и Любви лучи,
Мне шлёшь, чтоб сохранить меня от бедствий...

Искрятся твои очи вожделенно,
Взираешь ты, не опуская век...
Я пленник твой, и я не рвусь из плена,
Влюблённый, одинокий человек...
В твоих глазах слеза засеребрилась,
Но ты не хочешь излияний чувств...
Вся скорлупа души твоей разбилась,
А твой сосуд наполовину пуст...

Ты от себя самой хранишь все в тайне,
Прежние дни оставив за спиной...
Но словно молотом по наковальне,
Звучит в тебе Глас Божий, в час ночной...
К тебе одной протягиваю нити,
Как долго связь мы сможем сохранять...
Пока летим мы по одной орбите,
Нам нужно поскорей совместно жить...

Где ты, где я, в какой мы параллели,
Сознанье, разум, тело и душа...
Наши сердца идут к единой цели,
Не отстают они и не спешат...
Орлы мыслей, клюют страстей орешки,
Расколота единая душа...
Так дни и ночи, мы проводим в спешке,
Нас тени неизвестности страшат...

И мысли молнией сверкая без задержки,
До дна души, пронзили вертикаль...
Кто мы в сей жизни, короли иль пешки,
Какой сюрприз готовит календарь...
Нам дышится легко, как на морозе,
В липучий ком, сжимается тоска...
Мы изъясняемся то рифмами, то в прозе,
Хрупкий сосуд любви держа в руках...

Какой ценою покрыть свои грехи,
Несу крест по извилистой дороге...
У берега невидимой реки,
О камни в кровь стирая свои ноги...
Внимает взор, простор реки и ширь,
Холодным утром, в предрассветный час...
Давно покинул я свой монастырь,
Забыв снять со стены иконостас...

Мне пенье клироса давно уж опостыло,
Готов я душу навсегда продать...
Труба седьмая звонко протрубила,
И далека, как пропасть, благодать...
Мой ангел обломал об ветви крылья,
Тебя твой ангел, всё ещё хранит...
Я слёзы свои смешиваю с пылью,
Соль разъедает гладь моих ланит...

Я одинок, в своей просторной келье,
Твои шаги не слышу в тишине...
Твой дух витает над моей постелью,
Ты часто ночью снишься мне во сне...
Твоим речам внимаю как молитве,
Фраз благодать, поступков благодать...
Они остры порой, подобно бритве,
И могут камнем преткновения стать...

Боготворю я кротко, твоё тело,
Тела изгибы, волоса волну...
Твой силуэт черчу на стенах мелом,
Тебя воспринимая, как жену...
В порывах поэтического взлёта,
Описываю все твои черты...
Моего нимба, блекнет позолота,
Фосфором ауры, в ночи покрыта ты...

Заочно мы с тобою обвенчались,
Пустив в простор небесный голубей...
Без паруса челнок мой вновь отчалил,
Без вёсел в нём теперь плыву к тебе...
Я пеплом рокового искушения,
Воссев на прах, покрыл свою главу...
В предчувствии слепого наваждения,
Невидимой рекой к тебе плыву...

Ты спишь, колени сжав свои в калачик,
Проснись, уже звонят колокола...
И пусть бросают волны, жизни мячик,
По тропам Истины, среди добра и зла...
Божественным перстом пронзив скрижали,
Взирая Оком с верха пирамид...
Прорёк, "Свершилось", своды задрожали,
В пыль раскрошился ветхих дней гранит!

…

THE IRISH TIMES

‘I’m terrified of going back there’: Ukrainians flee occupied Kherson

The journey to Odesa takes two or more days via scores of checkpoints manned by unpredictable Russian troops on backroads that snake through minefields and trenches

In a simple room in a small hotel in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa, Tatyana Arkhipova perches on the edge of the bed and barely takes her eyes off her phone.
She is waiting for news of her son Ilya (9) and sister Darya (18), who are due to arrive in this Black Sea port sometime after midnight after an exhausting and risky journey from Russian-occupied Kherson.
Arkhipova already knows that the evacuees had to spend the previous night in a frontline village after failing to reach Ukrainian-held territory before an 8pm curfew, and that a shell exploded about 150m from their bus.
Before Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine 10 weeks ago, it was an easy 220km drive from Kherson to Odesa but now the journey is four times longer and takes two or more days, via scores of checkpoints manned by unpredictable Russian troops on backroads damaged by tank tracks and shelling that snake through minefields and trenches.
“I almost passed out when I heard war had begun,” recalls Arkhipova, who has been working in Poland and sending money home to her family in Kherson region, where fertile farmland runs down to the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula that Russia annexed in 2014.
“Now I want to take my son and my sister back to Poland with me. But life as an immigrant is hard, and I love and miss Skadovsk so much,” she says of her hometown, which is a small port and holiday resort 80km south of Kherson city.
“My grandma won’t leave. She supports Ukraine but she wants to stay at home. Lots of others have left Skadovsk, though. They say the Russians are going into houses and searching for ATO veterans,” she explains, referring to Ukraine’s eight-year military campaign against Moscow-led militia in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow is now placing collaborationist officials in charge of towns and cities in Kherson region, introducing its school curriculum and rouble currency, and – according to reports and local rumours – planning a “referendum” on splitting from Ukraine and joining Russia.
On a visit to Kherson on Friday Andrei Turchak, a senior member of Russia’s ruling United Russia party, said: “Russia is here forever. There should be no doubt about this. There will be no return to the past.”
Russian security services have abducted officials, teachers, activists and journalists in Kherson who they regard as having a strongly pro-Ukrainian position, and this week rerouted internet traffic through Russia, where it can be monitored, censored and blocked.
‘It seems chaotic’
“Since the first day of occupation there is no longer any notion of human rights or rule of law there. People are kidnapped, houses ransacked, kids threatened with weapons, and the Russians loot whatever they want,” says journalist Oleh Baturin, who was in his hometown of Kakhovka, 85km from Kherson, when the Russians took over.
“Officials are told that if you don’t collaborate, you’ll be arrested and kept in a basement. And businessmen who don’t co-operate have their businesses taken away,” he explains, listing a number of such cases in Kherson, one of several occupied areas where Ukraine says Russians are stealing farm machinery and thousands of tonnes of grain.

…(Oleh Baturin, a journalist, was abducted by Russian troops and held captive for eight days in Kherson region, southern Ukraine)…

Baturin was at home in Kakhovka on March 12th when a local activist called and said he needed to talk to him urgently, and they agreed to meet at the town’s bus station. When he arrived the activist was not there – Baturin believes he had been abducted and forced to make the call – but waiting Russian soldiers grabbed the journalist, dragged him into a car and drove him to a nearby town.

“I realised I was in the mayor’s office in Nova Kakhovka, and two men started questioning me,” says Baturin, who believes one of the pair was a local businessman whom he had written about and who is now collaborating with the Russians.
“They cuffed my hands very tightly and talked about that article. They said I could either say goodbye to work as a journalist or to my life. They threatened to kill me and to skin me with a knife,” he recalls. “Then I was moved with some other captives to Nova Kakhovka police station. They beat me on the first night but after that they just interrogated me and used psychological pressure. But I could hear others being beaten terribly, horribly.
“I could hear them being asked where they served, how many people they killed, their rank and commander, things like that, so I think they were ATO veterans. One young man was kicked and told he was going to be killed, and they fired a shot that sounded like a blank. It was like a mock execution. But from another room I heard what sounded like real shots.”
Baturin says his interrogators demanded to know who was organising peaceful anti-occupation protests in Kherson, Kakhovka and Nova Kakhovka, which Russian troops violently dispersed, reportedly shooting dead at least one person and injuring several others.
When he was released after eight days, Baturin’s captors ordered him to “stay at home and wait to be contacted because you will be told what to do next”. Instead, he fled with his wife and child to government-held territory before the Russians could take full control of the region.
“I don’t think the Russians have a clear plan about what to do with us. It seems chaotic,” Baturin (43) says, in the relative safety of Lviv in western Ukraine.

“They might try to create some sort of ‘people’s republic’ in Kherson, as they did in Donetsk and Luhansk in 2014, or they might want to connect the region to Crimea. But whatever they do, it won’t have the support of local people.”
‘Catastrophic shortages’
Street protests against the occupation have dwindled as Moscow has tightened its grip on the region, but Ukrainian officials say attacks on Russian troops continue and at least two prominent local pro-Kremlin figures have been shot dead in Kherson city recent weeks.
Chornobaivka, near Kherson, has already entered the folklore of the war after Ukrainian artillery repeatedly struck Russian positions and equipment at its strategic airfield; Kyiv claims its forces have hit the site 18 times and killed two Russian generals there.
“People in Chornobaivka are very scared, and for weeks now they are in the basement every night from 5pm, sheltering from shelling,” says Andrei, a resident of the village.
“No food shops are open and there’s a catastrophic shortage of things like medicines and nappies, and the water, electricity and gas systems constantly have to be repaired due to damage; 186 houses have been destroyed, but mercifully no one has died,” he explains.

…(A rally against the Russian occupation in Svobody (Freedom) Square in Kherson, Ukraine. Photograph: Olexandr Chornyi/AP Photo)…

“The Russians loot the houses of people who have left. They take whatever they need – beds, mattresses, tools for cars, washing machines, cars, minibuses. They just come with guns and take things, and civilians can’t do anything about it.”
Andrei (42) does not want to give his surname because he is a volunteer doing the dangerous work of evacuating civilians from Chornobaivka.
“We try to find ‘green corridors’ [safe routes] through Kherson region to get people to Ukrainian-controlled territory. We prioritise mothers with newborn babies and infants, then the elderly and relatives of Ukrainian servicemen,” he explains in Odesa.

“Last time the journey took 2; days: mothers with breastfeeding kids had to spend the night in a field, under shelling; we had to find a route from one green corridor to another; we began Easter Sunday in a field somewhere with 14 evacuees,” he recalls.
“Now we’re planning a new route out to Odesa but it will be 1,000km instead of 220km in normal times. And it’s totally unpredictable – at every checkpoint we have no idea if the Russians will let us through. They may ask for money, cigarettes, vodka or petrol.”
‘The drivers got us here’
Marko and Svitlana reached Odesa from Kherson two weeks ago, driving their car on a three-day journey in convoy with dozens of other vehicles. They do not want their real names to be used because they fear for the safety of relatives still living under occupation.
“I need to get my mother out. She can’t really move and we need to find a place where we can care for her. But honestly, I’m terrified of going back there, and if Marko went instead of me it would also be awful,” Svitlana says. “I start shaking just thinking about that journey,” adds Marko.
They describe driving through a landscape scarred by fighting; a tank cannon pointing at their car at one checkpoint; a man being forced to strip so Russian soldiers could examine him for Ukrainian “nationalist” tattoos; and wondering what thoughts moved behind the eyes of the masked gunmen who checked their documents every few kilometres.

…(Andrei (left) and Sergei, volunteers who drive evacuees from Russian-occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine to Odesa in government-held territory. Photograph: Daniel McLaughlin)…

“In Kherson we happened to be going past Freedom Square twice when the Russians were chasing away protesters. At least one person was shot – I don’t know if they did it on purpose but there was a big pool of blood,” says Svitlana.

“Cars without number plates drove up, four or five men jumped out and caught people and took them away. There’s a feeling of fear in the city. People start appearing on the streets at about 8am but by 2pm the streets are almost empty,” adds Marko.
Svitlana says prices for basic goods in Kherson region have soared under occupation, and that rumours of Russian plans for a referendum on its status are rife.
“People are scared of that and are almost everyone is completely against it,” she insists. “If our forces don’t liberate us, then I don’t know what will become of Kherson – we do not want occupation.”
Hours after Odesa’s 10pm curfew, the bus bringing evacuees from Kherson pulls up under police escort at the hotel where free accommodation and anxious relatives await.
“It’s such a relief, it’s so good to see them,” says Arkhipova as she hugs Ilya and Darya and then smothers her weary son with kisses. After two days on the road, the evacuees go inside, where they are offered food and drinks and shown to their rooms. Sveta and Lena, two friends from Kherson, are not quite ready to sleep.
“When all this is over, they should put up a statue to those drivers,” says Lena. “There were explosions on the way, mines beside the road, and some of the Russian soldiers were horrible – they demanded money and broke the door of our minibus – but the drivers got us here.”
They are safe now, but as they talk in the mild Odesa night, cigarettes glowing in the dark, they are still thinking of home. “We’re so glad to be in Odesa,” says Sveta, “but we will go back to our Kherson.”

…

A Ukrainian family’s desperate journey from Russian-occupied Kherson to safety in Poland: ‘We could see the artillery shells flying above us’
Last Updated: May 4, 2022 at 10:55 a.m. ET
First Published: April 29, 2022 at 12:21 a.m. ET
By Johnny O'Reilly
Father Mykola Dovgan, 56, a battalion chaplain, tells MarketWatch about his family’s treacherous journey to flee Ukraine.

Kyiv, UKRAINE — Artillery shells exploded around 56-year-old Orthodox priest Father Mykola Dovgan as he pushed his son, Sergey, in a wheelchair along the empty country road in southern Ukraine.
Gaunt with slicked-back hair and a gray goatee, Mykola had maintained his priestly demeanor when he fled his home in fear of his life.
But on that fateful and terrifying day Mykola told MarketWatch that his normally implacable manner dissolved into desperation. He led his family through an intense barrage of artillery fire between Ukrainian and Russian army positions outside his home in Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine now under Russian occupation.

The fiercely contested battlefront erupted in their path after they had to abandon their car to make the six-mile journey on foot to Snigurovka village, Mykola said.

After two days of packing and preparing, Mykola and his wife, son and mother-in-law were ready. At 5 a.m., with their most precious belongings stuffed into their 1993 Renault Espace, they set off on a perilous journey to an uncertain future.

Gripped with fear, Mykola’s 55-year-old wife, Tatiana, and her ailing 72-year-old mother, Yelizaveta, struggled to keep pace with him. Tears streamed down their faces, he said, but they persevered through a hail of flying shrapnel.
Time was their enemy, but it was God who Mykola blamed. He had seen three years of war as a chaplain but still found himself screaming. “It was an explosion of nerves, a scream from my soul,” he recalled, “I screamed at God. How could he do such a thing to me and my family? How could He even exist?”

The same despairing thoughts haunted Mykola 27 years earlier when his son was born with chronic cerebral palsy. The illness meant Sergey, who was blind and unable to walk or talk, would use a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
“For six years, I asked God why he was worse off than other children,” Mykola told MarketWatch. “It was painful, but our son eventually brought us happiness. And this brought me closer to God.”
Sergey’s birth set Mykola on a religious quest that ultimately led to the priesthood. Ordained in 2010, he served as an army chaplain during the war in East Ukraine from 2014 to 2016, before settling into a life as a parish priest in Kherson with his wife, Sergey and their eldest son, Sasha.

Their life remained peaceful until the night of Feb. 24, 2022.

Aware that the Russians knew of his role as territorial army battalion chaplain, Mykola had kept a low profile throughout the occupation, resolving to stay indoors and help his wife, Tatiana, take care of Sergey.
When his fellow Orthodox priest Father Serhiy Chudynovych was kidnapped and tortured, however, the alarm sounded in the local Orthodox community. Chudynovych, the rector of a well-known church in Kherson, was a prominent public figure in the community.

Mykola realized he wasn’t safe, but leaving the city was still the riskier option. When he was tipped off that his name was on a list distributed among Russian soldiers, his risk analysis shifted. He sat his family down and convinced them it was time to leave. 
After two days of packing and preparing, Mykola and his wife, son and mother-in-law were ready. At 5 a.m., with their most precious belongings stuffed into their 1993 Renault Espace, they set off on a perilous journey to an uncertain future.
Once a peaceful coastal city
Kherson is — or was — a quiet, balmy coastal city of 280,000 on the west bank of the Dniepr River, about 15 miles from the river’s mouth. An important shipping and shipbuilding base only 80 miles from Crimea, it was a key strategic target for Russia’s invading forces when they arrived on the morning of Feb. 25.
Waiting to confront them at the Antonovskiy Bridge, a key junction spanning the Dniepr River and connecting Kherson to the east, was a small Ukrainian army force supported by Kherson’s territorial army battalion — a group of 500 trained volunteers and veterans armed only with machine guns.
Among them was Mykola. As battalion chaplain, he did not take up arms, but was in the thick of the action, helping to evacuate the wounded and administering to the dead.
The battle for Antonovskiy Bridge was intense and lasted three days, resulting in hundreds of casualties on both sides. Russian forces ultimately prevailed, forcing the smaller Ukrainian army back toward Mykolaev, 60 miles to the west. Kherson’s territorial army fighters lost 50 comrades before retreating to their families and to a new life of enforced anonymity under Russian occupation.
For almost two months, the ever-thickening shadow of Russian rule has enveloped Kherson. Multiple checkpoints erected on all routes out of the city have practically cut it off from the outside world.

‘Heavily armed Russian police and operatives are sent out in civilian clothing to patrol the streets in cars stolen from Kherson residents. Their behavior is characterized by widespread looting, random acts of violence and summary arrests.’

The regional administration building has been commandeered by the Russian army and the FSB as a joint headquarters. From there, heavily armed Russian police and operatives are sent out in civilian clothing to patrol the streets in cars stolen from Kherson residents. Their behavior is characterized by widespread looting, random acts of violence and summary arrests. Murders and unexplained disappearances are common.
Fearful Kherson residents remain indoors until they have to go out for food or medicine. One of them, Oksana, agreed to speak to MarketWatch on the condition her surname be withheld.
An NGO worker and fundraiser for volunteer groups in Kherson, Oksana spends most of her time at home with her 9-year-old boy who attends school online. “A week ago, I met a friend in a park,” she said. “But that’s a rare treat, because even having meetings in public is dangerous.”
Economic activity has all but ceased in the city, Oksana said from Kherson over Signal Video. “Supermarkets are empty, but people can buy vegetables in street markets. The problem is finding cash. Exchanging cash from credit cards is now a big business, but everything is twice or three times the normal price and queues are really long. I had to wait three hours this week just to buy milk.”
Services such as water, electricity, and public transport are working but any sense of normal life, according to Oksana, is an illusion.
“The Russians couldn’t find any pro-Russian fanatics within the city administration to run it for them,” so for two months the Mayor and his team remained in the city’s administration building. That changed on Tuesday, when the Russians took over the building and replaced the Ukrainian with the Russian flag.
The self-declared new “deputy-head” of the Kherson region administration, Kirill Stremousov, declared that the region would “move into the Ruble zone.”
Fearing that this change in currency is another step towards holding a “fake” referendum to declare Kherson an independent republic, a couple of hundred Kherson residents protested in the city’s centre square this week, and were dispersed with stun grenades and tear gas.
Meanwhile, Oksana recalled, the Russians have concentrated their efforts on trying to root out and neutralize members of the Ukrainian police, secret service or territorial army, all of whom are hiding at home with their families. They’ve had limited success with this, according to the regional prosecutor’s office, which has reported 137 people, including several journalists, abducted by the Russians in the city. Their fate remains unknown.

‘The problem is finding cash. Exchanging cash from credit cards is now a big business, but everything is twice or three times the normal price and queues are really long. I had to wait three hours this week just to buy milk.’
— Oksana, a resident of Kherson, a Ukrainian city under Russian control.

Every night, flashes from distant artillery explosions light up the horizon, Oksana said, and the loud rumbling that follows is a reminder both to Kherson’s civilians and to its occupying Russian forces of the battle that may engulf the city.
Recent reports suggest the Ukrainian army is gaining the upper hand. If true, retaking the city, the first to be fully occupied by the Russians, would mark a stunning victory for Ukraine.
Territorial army troops in Kherson are waiting for the Ukrainian army to advance closer to the city so they can make their move. Hidden in plain sight, embedded with their families, masquerading as civilians, they have concealed their weapons but kept them nearby.
One of them spoke to MarketWatch under a pseudonym, Alexey, to protect his identity.
“We all stay at home, but are constantly in touch with each other and with the Ukrainian army, sharing information on Russian positions and movements around the city,” Alexey said via Signal. “We also have hidden cameras outside the city, so we know a lot about the enemy’s behavior, its strength and weaknesses.”
Following the destruction of a Russian military command post near Kherson on April 22, volleys of incoming artillery explosions moved closer to the city’s boundaries over the weekend. “Last night was one of the loudest in weeks,” Alexey said. “This gives us hope that our liberation is coming soon.”
Having spent almost two months indoors, he is excited by and fearful of the prospect of another battle. “All of us have fear. It’s natural. It’s stupid not to be afraid,” he said. “But we’re more frightened of being abducted and tortured than of dying on the battlefield.”

…(Mykola Dovgan, a battalion chaplain: ‘We lost our car, and half of our belongings, but that’s all we lost. The value of our material goods are nothing. The only things that really matter in the world are people and God.’)…
c/o Mykola Dovgan

Threat of torture looms
The threat of torture looms over Kherson like a toxic cloud. According to Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, Liudmyla Denisova, the Russians have established torture chambers for Ukrainian abductees in the city.
“With over 140 people missing, everyone in Kherson fears the worst,” Oksana said. “That’s why so many of them left the city when the atrocities of Bucha were revealed.”  
Escape from Kherson, meanwhile, is available only to people with a car or those who can afford to pay $300 to a driver with links to the Russians.
The notoriously dangerous route to the nearest Ukrainian-controlled town, Mykolaiv, follows a warren of back roads via Snigurovka, crossing 10 Russian checkpoints as well as the fiercely contested battlefront.
The twisted remains of shot-up, burnt-out cars discarded outside the city point to a grim fate that could face anyone trying to leave. Most don’t even consider it.
Mykola’s journey was perilous, and he and his family almost didn’t make it. “I learnt from one of the drivers which checkpoints were less likely to have the list, and started plotting our trip,” the Ukrainian battalion chaplain said in a phone interview with MarketWatch after he reached safety.

…(‘Every car that passes is stopped and searched. Sometimes drivers and passengers have to hand over their phones, so the soldiers can check their messaging apps. They’re looking for people who send locations of Russian army positions.’)…
— Father Mykola Dovgan, an Orthodox priest and battalion chaplain

Mykola said he was nervous as they approached the constellation of concrete blocks, sandbags and rusting tank traps at the first checkpoint. The Russian soldiers asked a few questions, glanced in the back of the car and waved them on.
“Every car that passes is stopped and searched. Sometimes drivers and passengers have to hand over their phones, so the soldiers can check their messaging apps,” said Mykola, who wiped from his phone all incriminating messages and photos before the journey. “They’re looking for people who send locations of Russian army positions or anyone who simply expresses Ukrainian patriotism.”
“I was lucky because my son was sprawled on a mattress in the back of the car,” he added. “I pretended that I was just delivering him to a hospital in Mykolaiv.” Progressively fine-tuning this story, he drove through another eight checkpoints without incident.
Then they came across a checkpoint manned by Chechens. Chechens are the best equipped in the Russian army. Mykola was surprised to see them, but knew it meant this was the final checkpoint before the front line. They surrounded his car.
“I served in the Soviet army, so I knew how to talk to these guys,” recalled Mykola. “One of them looked inside the car, saw Sergey, then turned to face me. I held his stare while telling him the same story I told the others. He listened politely, then waved us through.”
The family proceeded through Snigurokva. The village was purged of any life, he said, an absence explained by the pulverized trees, road craters, and single-story homes razed to the ground. Signposts had been removed from the crossroads at the far end of the village as part of a nationwide campaign to confuse the invaders.

…(Mykola and his family proceeded through  Snigurokva. The village was purged of any life, an absence explained by the pulverized trees, road craters, and single-story homes razed to the ground. Signposts had been removed to confuse invaders.)…

Mykola, an unintended victim of this missing signpost strategy, stopped the car, unsure of which turn to take. After a while, a Jeep approached them and took the right turn. Mykola decided to follow it. The Jeep hurtled out onto the vast steppe at breakneck speed. Mykola pushed the Renault Espace to its limits to keep up.
Four miles along the road, Mykola and his family heard the first artillery explosions. Two miles later, they saw part of a field to their left explode in a fireball. Then the Jeep stopped, turned around and raced back towards them, passing them by at high speed.
Up ahead was a sign warning that the road was mined. Mykola noticed a row of Russian soldiers lying down in a shallow trench near the side of the road. Two of them stood up and ran up to him.
“There was no conversation. They just told us to get out of there quickly, unless we wanted to be shot up by a tank,” Mykola said. “I reversed the car to turn it, and the gearbox broke. I tried to fix it, but there was nothing I could do except drive away in first gear.”
A few minutes down the road, the car’s radiator collapsed. Steam gushed out from the bonnet and the car stopped. “At this point, artillery was pounding all around us, on both sides of the road. In a second, I decided we couldn’t stay in the car.”
They abandoned the car and half their belongings, strapped Sergey to his wheelchair, and started walking back to Snigurovka.
“We could see the artillery shells flying above us,” Mykola said. “Many of them landed really close. It felt like they were aiming at us. During the battle for Antonovskiy bridge, I saw helicopter gunfire tear my comrades apart. That was frightening, but not as bad as this. I told the others if one of us dies, we’ll have to leave them behind. All we could do was keep walking. The most frightening part of it all was that there was nothing we could do. God was the only one who could help us.”
After an exhausting three hours, they made it back to the crossroads outside Snigurovka and tried to hitchhike to Mykolaiv. “There were four of us, a wheelchair and six pieces of luggage. My wife must have stopped 20 cars but none of them had any room. We knew it would be dark soon and the artillery battle would intensify.”
Finally, a white van pulled over. The driver, Yaroslav, 37, a pharmacist from the nearby town of Skadovsk, was on a medicine delivery run to Kherson. He had space. “When Yaroslav dropped us off in Mykolaiv, we embraced and I cried. His kindness saved us,” Mykola said.
Speaking to MarketWatch from the sanctuary of a Baptist church outside Warsaw, Mykola has had time to recover, relax and put his whole ordeal in perspective.
“But [Yaroslav] wasn’t the only one who showed us kindness,” he added. “There was an American Baptist who met us at Mykolaiv and brought us to the train station in Odessa. There were people on the train who helped us. There were the Poles who took care of us at the border. We met so many amazingly kind people on that journey.”
He has finally had a moment to reflect on his treacherous journey. “We lost our car, and half of our belongings, but that’s all we lost. The value of our material goods are nothing. The only things that really matter in the world are people and God.”
Now on his way with his family to Germany, where they will be taken care of by the local Ukrainian Orthodox community, Mykola sees a metaphor in his own experience that is relevant to what his city and his country are going through.
“God has given me and my family many challenges, but he’s always helped us through in the end,” he said. “He must has a plan for me.”
Johnny O’Reilly is a writer and filmmaker based in Ukraine.

…

#charity #grateful #WeSupportUkraine #ukrainian #Zelensky #service #grateful #WeSupportUkraine #Zelensky #EasterSunday #ukraine #wesupportukraine #kiev #supportukraine #staystrongukraine #academ, #stopwar #UkraineWar #ukrainiannews, #wesupportUkraine #academmedia #academfm #worldcentralkitchen #WeSupportUkraine #donations #helpeachother #wesupportukrain #ukrainewar #ukranianrefugees #hostfamily #lighthousecharities #westandwithukraine #service #dogood #churchofjesuschristoflatterdaysaints #giveback #becauseihavebeengivenmuch #signsofhope #signsofsolidarity  #WCK #withapurpose #FreeUkraine #WeAreAllUkrainians #United  #godsaveukraine #istandwithukraine #нетвойне #мирумир #standwithukraine

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Для тех кому интересны мои стихи и мысли о войне в Украине

Ссылки на мои стихи, мысли и чувства о войне в Украине.

Ссылка на сайт всех моих стихов
http://stihi.ru/avtor/nobfly

Свеча Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/11/3556

Плачь Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/17/5459 

Ветер войны над детьми Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/21/3165 

Свет в окне Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/25/4013

Ода Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/26/3954

33 дня войны в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/28/5378

Любимой Украинке Виктории
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/29/834

Молитва и Пост за Украину
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/29/4429

Вавилонская Блудница Сташный Суд
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/30/669

Путь к победе Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/30/908

За Украину
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/30/1033

Война и Мир в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/30/1083

Война в Украине окончена
http://stihi.ru/2022/03/31/59

Любовь во время войны в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/02/6423

Значение Z в войне в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/03/3858

Священникам о Войне в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/04/4608

Огненное Крещение Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/08/1058

Молебен об Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/08/1247

Украина - это Божия Война
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/10/22

Магдалина и Гностик в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/10/1937

Выжить в подвалах Украины и России
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/15/3308

Z Война в Украине и Ю Тубе
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/15/5641n

Беженцы Украины
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/15/5821

Христианский пацифизм в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/15/6914

Ядерная война в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/16/1729

Баба Яга в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/16/3207

Мы все в каббалистической Войне в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/16/7244

Пасха на войне в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/17/6189

Молчание Китая, БГ и Аллы Пугачёвой Украина война
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/18/4958

Молитва о свободе от войны в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/19/2575

Милой Украинке Виктории
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/20/7432

Бог ЗСУ христианство и язычество в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/20/7746

Хотеть войны в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/22/7131

Уничтожение славян как расы в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/23/1221

Загадка во время войны в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/25/3979

Галкин Киркоров OLA KALA TODA о Мире в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/27/5465

Трубный Зов в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/04/27/7801   

Возлюбленной Украинке Виктории
http://stihi.ru/2022/05/01/554

Морген Сатира Сатурн Гордон в Украине
http://stihi.ru/2022/05/03/4253

«Обiйми». Харкiв (Obijmy by Okean Elzy for Biennale di Venezia 2022)
https://youtu.be/tj7bgjirNfQ