Thousands of Military Crimes: How do people live in Kherson region after de -occupation (photo)

In the liberated villages of Kherson region - a difficult task - the roads are broken, and from them it is dangerous - the areas can be replaced, you can move only accompanied by the military. The High -Pill in the Kherson Region of the Armed Forces was released in September. In October, the front line shifted south to the Dnieper - President Volodymyr Zelenskyy officially announced the transition under Ukrainian control of the villages of Arkhangelsk and Mirolyubivka.

Later, it became known about the release of the settlements Big and Mala Oleksandrivka, David Brid. In general, by the end of October, according to the operational command "South", the invaders were supplanted from 88 settlements of Kherson region. And not only in the north, but also in the west of the region. Now the front line is approaching Berislav, strategic for the Russians of the city on the Dnieper - opposite Kakhovka. In the liberated villages, they often hear the fighting.

They can be heard if you visit the territories free from the occupiers. In addition to journalists, representatives of investigative bodies, prosecutors, international organizations and Ukrainian human rights activists come. Some bring humanitarian aid because there are still no light, water and gas in the settlements, but most of them are to collect testimony of war crimes committed during the occupation.

Arthur Prykhno is a journalist of a human rights organization Media Initiative for Human Rights. He recently returned from the field mission to the Kherson region, visited the Berislav district. He went to Kharkiv several times. Arthur is convinced that it is very important to come to such settlements and talk to people. "While they remember the details and are ready to talk about occupation. Later people will get tired, they want to forget about negative experiences.

While the majority is determined. Some just tell you that they have experienced, and some - want justice, insists that they want to prove that above They were abused by specific people, almost no one knows the true names of the Russian military, but they heard them calling. For example, they remember the person with the call sign "armor. " They say he himself from Donetsk, and his parents from Poltava, so he got such a second name, " - says Arthur. Settlements in Kherson region were very injured.

In fact, administrative buildings, schools, hospitals, and many homes are destroyed. There are small villages where no one lives - they are completely destroyed. For example, in Arkhangelsk, more than half of the homes are not suitable for life. Novovorontsovka, which, although not under occupation, was constantly fired, especially the surrounding area. Moreover, local people say that at the time when the Ukrainian military was not around, the shelling continued - it flew in residential buildings.

The main roads-in a more or less normal condition, you can drive them. But if you need to roll somewhere, then there are no roads there. Some were still gone. To get from Lyubimivka to Bilyaevka, in the truest sense you have to go on the knee in the mud. Everywhere you can see the presence of the Russian army.

On the outskirts of settlements - positions and trenches, residues of broken equipment, boxes from ammunition, three -liter banks with the inscription on the label: "ZO", boxes from dry -ups and icons. A separate history can be told about the village of Lyubimivka. There, the "Second Army of the World" is located on the pig farm. Where previously kept cattle, Russian soldiers arranged "barracks", brought in them a robbed - mattresses, carpets, suitcases.

During the occupation, most local residents left. For example, before the war in Arkhangelsk lived 1800 people, after no more than two hundred. Those who decide to remain under the occupation are people who either had nowhere to go or could not leave sick relatives. Some at some point just feared to leave because they were acquainted with whether they were fired. In some communities, the heads remained with the locals, in others they left. The last people say they could be near, but did not want to.

In their places were assigned new, occupation. According to local, high-pool and surrounding settlements, "any pick-up" controlled. "They called the Russians the elite - for example, intelligence. In the bulk in the Beryslav district were present representatives of" LDNR ". They are characterized as cruel, who were constantly trying to mock the locals, did not even miss the cure in the neighboring village.

When people tried to justify the need They heard in response: "Our mothers have been suffering for eight years, and you will suffer. " There were also Russian citizens with Buryat appearance and Dagestan. Nobody mentioned the Chechens, "Arthur says. "In the Kherson region, to say so, the higher concentration of war crimes than in Kharkiv.

You approach the first counter if this person was occupied, then accurately either a victim or witness of crimes, or can tell several stories at once," he says Arthur Prikhno. When the Russians came, people tried to eliminate them: they did not go out to the street again, so as not to get into the eyes of the Russian military, and hid in their homes or cellars. For example, in high -forders people openly testify to the facts of sexual harassment.

One woman said that her son was injured in her hand when he tried to prevent the representatives of the occupying army who clinging to the neighbor. She ran, shot it, got two guys. "Personally, the girl failed to talk, as we were told, many people said," this woman, except her son, has two daughters. One small, and the other was 14 years old. So she was hiding in the house for 14 years. Because the people of the buryatic appearance, namely, were pointed to the locals, were looking for girls.

Therefore, the 14-year Handed, they said there was no such. " People often stolen people in the occupation. It is about dozens of missing. Moreover, they were kept in the premises of local administrations, schools and basements of private homes. As a rule, these were men suspected that they could cooperate with the Ukrainian army, to transmit information on the location of the positions of the Russians. The most common cause of detention is the information contained in mobile phones.

The Russians will see in their hands, they will be sure to check: photos, videos, correspondence. "For example, in Bilyaevka, one guy was found a video that was loaded into the phone after watch A friend from another village: what do you have? This man did not even have time to read, the Russians arrived, checked - taken to the basement. "In addition to illegal detention, used to local and torture. One man told him that he was cut with a knife, promised to kill.

The other said he was not inflicted on physical pain, But they were kept in terrible conditions: in a room of 3 by 4 meters in size, there were ten people, they were not even released in the toilet, they were rarely fed. The river passed the so -called demarcation line. On the other side of Ingulets - Zarichne, which is constantly controlled by the Ukrainian army.

And so, through planting and meadows, the local could reach the rivers: they walked on foot, carrying children on carts with garden wheelbarrows. They were greeted there by local men. , Boat owners, fishermen. One is from Zarichny, the other - from Arkhangelsky. They took people out of occupation on their ordinary rubber boats. In the fall, the river seems less full -flowing, and in the spring it is quite wide, so it was dangerous and difficult.

In the district, legends are about these men who rescued several thousand residents of Arkhangelsk and other villages, ”Arthur Prykhno recalls. He says to communicate with one of the fishermen, but he does not want publicity. The main nurse of the local hospital Nadezhda Tsalinskaya remained in the high pilgsp. Until February 24, there were about four thousand people, and with the beginning of a full -scale invasion of the Russian Federation - up to 200.

"This woman says: I was left, because she had to help people," Arthur reports. In her house, Tsalinskaya arranged a manipulation, where he and her nurse - received sick and wounded. More than one hundred people, that is, every third local resident. She worked in conditions of complete isolation from the outside world - the Russians, although allowed patients to come to doctors, but they were banned from the yard at some point.

"In the early days, many people left, and then the Russians blocked the departure to the locals. Even in this nurse, the man died because he was not released for surgery - he had diabetes, gangrene began. Hope was powerless. But helped others: but helped: If it were not for her and her colleague, there would be no one to provide medical care.

Some tried to contact the occupiers, asked to release them to doctors - units were sent to the hospital in the depths of the occupied territories, and from there it would be much more difficult, " - says the journalist of human rights protection organization. He met another nurse in Novovorontsovka. And although the settlement was not under occupation, the local hospital was constantly under fire, little left.