How the war turns Ukrainian cities into ghost towns | Focus on Europe

The war in Ukraine has been grinding on since February, and this week saw a massive up tick in missile attacks by Russia. But Ukraine’s forces have been making spectacular gains, surprising many observers. Russian troops have retreated from several Ukrainian territories that they’d occupied for much of the year.
DW’s Mathias Bölinger takes us to a Ukrainian town near the border with Russia that was occupied by Russian invaders earlier this year. They may no longer be there, but what they did remains.

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foreign from the regional capital harkiv or three times longer than before the war you have to take small local roads because all the major routes and bridges are destroyed the town was home to 17 000 people before the invasion [Music] and it’s just four kilometers from the Russian border the Russian army occupied both chunks on the very first day of the war but in September the Ukrainian flag returned sir hiko novalov was here throughout the eight months Russians occupied the town he calls them rattis meaning Russian fascists before the rashes came I had everything I had a job my wife had nice clothes and our fridge was full and now they’ve come and messed up our lives the town is basically gone hardly anyone is left [Music] most of the res erves are fled and there are traces of combat everywhere the Ukrainian military has taken over control and set up checkpoints at the entrance to the town they fear Russia might send in saboteurs what Russia has been sending are a lot of shells from the other side of the Border Universe the most on Mondays the same way they fire on big cities on Monday mornings they wish us good morning too and we respond however we can traces of the blasts are everywhere there are regular blackouts there’s no more gas because the town was connected to the Russian gas grid before the war the people are preparing to face a cold winter without Heating and not enough humanitarian Aid makes it over the bad roads into the remote town so not everyone here is happy about being liberated [Music] when the Russians were here we had relatively normal lives there was work and we were getting regular humanitarian Aid they would also even hand out money now we have nothing excuse me even before the war the town was considered pro-russian and many residents fled together with the occupying forces according to local authorities No More Than A Fifth remain mostly elderly people and those who want nothing to do with Russian values we had it rough living under Russian rule with Russian fascists roaming the streets it was terrible foreign toxicated man away people want to imply that we’re collaborators distrust runs deep among those who stayed behind accusations are rampant about who collaborated with the occupiers or might even still be passing on information making it hard for the military Administration we hear many claims of duplicity that those who denounce people to the Russians are now coming to us and announcing others for having been collaborators like elsewhere Russian rule here was violent young men would disappear into dark basements and some came back with serious injuries one of the torture chambers was found below this Factory II was targeted by the occupiers he was caught on the street after curfew and summoned I was afraid that they would torture me here or something but I was only forced to work for them I had to show up at eight in the morning and slave away for them until five in the evening digging trenches carrying stuff around and stacking sandbags [Music] out of the town and as soon as he’s helped his mother to prepare for winter he also wants to leave at least for a while we’re on our land they attacked us not the other way around that’s how I see it and I think that’s how many see it that’s how ukrainians feel about it this is our land we didn’t attack our neighbors we don’t want anything from them artillery fire the latest early morning greeting from across the border