A summer Sunday evening in Kremenchuk, a city of 220,000 inhabitants, in central Ukraine, 300 kilometers from kyiv and 200 kilometers from the front line. A DJ spins his records on Independence Square, street musicians play on the banks of the Dnieper. Onlookers take pictures of the sunset or bathe in the river. The sirens sound. They had already howled on June 27, 2022, when a Russian missile strike destroyed the vast Amstor shopping center. Rescuers had searched the rubble for six days. Result: 22 dead, 59 injured. So, this Sunday, some are hurrying to protect themselves, others are taking out their cell phones to monitor the trajectory of the missiles via Telegram channels. “It’s good, it’s flying more to the east. » An hour later, the alert is lifted. A voice shouts: “Glory to the anti-aircraft defence!” »
The next day, stroll on the esplanade of the Palace of Culture, where in the early 2000s, Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president then an actor, performed regularly. On the program: a concert, a show for children, and, this Monday, a funeral. Men and women in mourning dress arrive with carnations in hand. Tribute is paid to Igor Kholodniak, fighter of the Azov regiment and defender of the Azovstal factory in Mariupol, who died on July 29, 2022 in the explosion of the Olenivka prison, in the Donbass enclave, where he was imprisoned with his comrades.
Oleg Kravchenko, funeral convoy driver, stands in the middle of a group of soldiers. “The month of June was calm, he comments, drawing on his cigarette. On the other hand, in May, we buried a soldier every day. » As they leave the coffin, the assembly places their left knee on the ground: a Cossack tribute to the war dead. On Oleg Kravchenko’s car carrying away the body, a large sign: “Heroes do not die”, an epitaph born in Maidan Square, in Kiev, during the 2014 revolution. In the cemetery, next to the graves of soldiers, an alley runs alongside graves that all have the same date of death: the victims of the bombing of the Amstor shopping center.
Soviet conversion
In a café, Darya Kokhanivska, 20, with radiant red hair and a striped pink T-shirt, sips her latte. Laryssa, his mother, is the only victim of the Amstor bombing whose body has never been found. Her husband and three daughters – Darya is the youngest – waited six months before she was officially declared dead. “We decided not to make a symbolic grave. We collect ourselves in front of a photo of mom at home, that’s already it. »
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