Martina Martelloni of INTERSOS arrives in Ukraine to document ongoing operations to help displaced people cope with winter and the aftermath of war. This is the report of her trip
Reaching the city of Poltava in eastern Ukraine takes about three days from Italy. Airspace over the country has been closed since last February; no civilian airline can fly over the territory during the war. You get there by leaving Rome on a direct flight to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova, stay there one night, and then, from what is the poorest country in Europe and has taken in thousands of Ukrainian families who fled the conflict, get into a car, and cross the border. The line out at the border is moving, not many people are returning to the country especially now that winter is here, the course of the conflict is incomprehensible, and the situation is risky.
The first stop on the mission is the town of Vinnytsia: we are in central Ukraine, about four hours from the capital Kyiv. Vinnytsia welcomes me with images of daily routine that flows regularly; people in the street walking, stores open, the market in the square, and cars in the street at every intersection. The war seems to be dissolved. But it is the reality and the time that remember what these people have been living in for almost ten months. Walking down one of the city’s main streets suddenly, the image of destruction is here. A large building is shown with piles of rubble and pieces of plaster scattered all around, it is what remains from the missile attack last July 14, when the entire structure consisting of offices and medical centers was hit in broad daylight. Twenty-two people died, including three children.
INTERSOS guest house is a few minutes from the center, Ukrainian and international colleagues have made this their home. A few hours later comes the second signal reminding us that we are at war. The air raid alarm sounds, and we all descend into the underground bunker, the most secure part of the house. The phones all vibrate and raise the sound of the institutional app that the authorities highly recommend we use. Minutes pass, everyone continues to work with laptops, and someone else indulges in a chat with a neighbor. Still others, like me, stand still and silent. After about an hour the second alarm sounds, giving the all-clear, we can leave. Like the entire Vinnytsia oblast, this area has become a hotspot for internally displaced people. Most families are fleeing from the south and east and have been living for months in the various shelters set up in small buildings or facilities scattered around the area.
The same scenary in Poltava. The next morning begins the drive to reach this area so close to the areas most affected by the ongoing conflict. Poltava lies across the Dnipro River, separating East and West, and is about 100 km from Kharkiv. After nearly eight hours of driving, passing through Kyiv, and encountering at least four or five checkpoints along the way, we finally arrive in Poltava. Lack of power is a constant for those who live in this part of the territory because most of the power grids have been destroyed by bombing. What little electricity is left must be rationed, with local authorities supplying it in three- or four-hour slots and then removing it again. Those without private generators, like most of the population, are left in the dark and without heaters for several hours throughout the day and night. The first night in my hotel room, I waited awake until two o’clock for the power to come back on, the alarm went off a couple of times, and everything looked completely black outside the window.
Living without power is harsher than one might remotely imagine. Every daily activity requires electricity: starting from washing up to cooking, working, or studying. “Over time you get used to this too,” recount me the displaced people welcomed at the elementary school in Dykan’ka, a village about half an hour from Poltava. In this area and other surrounding schools, INTERSOS distributes essential goods, renovates classrooms, and assists the 70 guests with psychologists and different kinds of social activities. I met Maria and Tatiana, a mother and daughter who cannot stop crying as they describe their worst trauma, they lost a 14-year-old grandson who was a victim of a missile attack in the town of Lyman in the Donetsk region. They have been living in these classrooms since May. Maria is about 80 years old; she walks leaning on a worn wooden stick bothered by the surrounding sounds and keeps reaching for the hands of the staff member standing next to her. Tatiana shows me photos of her grandson, which she has pinned above the bed with the rest of her family members, “I promised him he would survive,” she tells me staring at the floor.
Temperatures are quickly reaching zero. There is an increasing need not to leave alone the more than 200,000 people who have arrived in the Poltava region, which hosts one of the highest numbers of displaced people. The lines of women, men, and children that I saw in March crossing the border into Moldova and Poland are now forming again here to receive humanitarian packages. In the early morning hours, I reach a city collection center where INTERSOS distributes essential needs. There are so many people waiting for their turn. I walk sideways through the line taking pictures of the people’s faces who never appear resigned. A 90-year-old woman hugs Clara, one of our workers, gets emotional, and thanks her for what she has received. She shows me the inside of the package: pasta, coffee, cookies, canned food, and other freeze-dried meals that do not require cooking and electricity usage.
After about four hours, the queue run out, and people, from Kharkiv, Donetsk, and Lugansk, return to the shelters or apartments where they live. In Ukraine, people live a daily routine in the first part of the day, from early afternoon until darkness falls, cold, and the 10 p.m. curfew does not leave time for anything else. Living in these conditions for days is nothing, people are aware that they must return, but for those who remain, this has been the new normal since February 24.
The humanitarian organizations working in this area share some of the hardships with the population: carrying on their work without light and heating, getting in and out of the bunker, and never knowing fully whether that air raid warning is preventive or a real and close attack. I returned to Rome, Italy, by tracing that same road trip through the heart of Ukraine to Moldova. The pictures I took and the videos and stories I collected continue the report of what has been happening in the country since February; this is evidence of the work and dedication that, on the field, the aid workers have been doing every single day.