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Kramatorsk. It is from here that the Ukraine organizes its defensive struggle in the east, and the city is repeatedly bombarded with rockets. At night you can hear the thunder of cannons on the horizon. Nevertheless, the residents try to be able to live a kind of everyday life. Three victims tell.
The lieutenant colonel
Legend:
“Here in Kramatorsk, decisions are being made on how this brutal war will develop,” says Lieutenant Colonel Serhiy Osachuk.
Evgeny Zhynkar
“Kramatorsk is the capital of Donbass, the number one target of Putin, who has ordered his occupying forces to take control of the region.” Serhiy Osachuk says so. He is a lieutenant colonel in the Ukrainian border guards, who are on the front line here with the Ukrainian army. Osatschuk studied him in Vienna, so he speaks German; he was governor of a western Ukrainian province – and now he is defending his homeland in the east against the Russian army.
«We are in the center of the Ukrainian defensive struggle. This is where we will decide how this brutal war will develop.” Osachuk regularly drives to the front himself, for example to the heavily contested town of Bakhmut.
Kramatorsk is Putin’s number one target.
The situation, he says, is difficult. “The situation is very dangerous, we don’t talk about it nicely. The Russians have learned from their defeats in 2022. And they have greater resources, in every respect.”
The coffee house owner
Legend:
Her guests mostly wear uniforms: Ekaterina Seledzova.
Evgeny Zhynkar
War is omnipresent in Kramatorsk. In the center there are many soldiers in combat fatigues, front-line fighters in their battered cars.
But there is also supposedly everyday life in Kramatorsk: In the “Coffee House” a pop song hums out of the loudspeaker. The café is all pink; Home-made cakes with opulent cream decorations and pickled cherries on top are in a display case.
Owner Ekaterina Seledzova, 29, is in a good mood despite the adverse circumstances. «I’m constantly asked why my walls are pink, but my customers are mostly men. Well, I wanted to make a café for myself, a little princess house where mothers with children, young women feel comfortable. I didn’t know at the time that it was mainly men who would come.”
I didn’t know at the time that it was mainly men who would come.
The men who come here for coffee and a piece of cake usually wear uniforms. The war changed the customer structure of the café. This also has something to do with the fact that half of the 160,000 residents of Kramatorsk have fled – mostly women and children. Café owner Seledzova nonetheless counters the war with a defiant joie de vivre.
You don’t know in advance whether a rocket is coming or not. So why worry unnecessarily?
Even the new air raid alarm doesn’t upset the young woman. You don’t know in advance whether a rocket is coming or not, she says. So why worry unnecessarily? Fatalism as a survival strategy.
“I’ll tell you a funny story. A rocket hit the house next door a few weeks ago. At that time I had a cream for a cake on the stove. Buummmm, bang, the windows were shaking. But I couldn’t let go of the cream because it burns if you don’t keep stirring. So I just stayed in the kitchen.”
The pensioner
Legend:
Nina Timofeevna has to plan her pension carefully.
Evgeny Zhynkar
But by no means all residents can deal with the difficult situation in such a relaxed manner. The market in Kramatorsk is much less busy than before the war.
72-year-old Nina Timofeevna came to buy milk and cottage cheese. She and her husband together have a pension of the equivalent of 200 francs, she says. A large part of this is used for medication.
The elderly couple has almost nothing left for food – especially since the prices have risen sharply: “Milk used to cost 22 hryvna, now it costs 28 hryvna. I’ve just received my pension, now I’ve bought 3 liters, we’ll live on that now.”
If it hits me, I hope it ends soon. That I don’t have to suffer anymore.
The war brings not only death and destruction to Kramatorsk, but also poverty and fear: «If only the war would stop. I’m so afraid of the bombs. And when it hits me, I hope it ends soon. That I don’t have to suffer anymore.”
For the time being, Nina Timofeevna’s desire for peace is unlikely to come true. In the last few days, the Russians have intensified their attacks in the Kramatorsk area.