In an interview with UNIAN, the mayor of the Russian-occupied city of Trostyanets in the Sumy region, Yuri Bova, spoke about the behavior of the Russian military, work underground and community life during the war and occupation.

When did Russian troops occupy Trostyanets?

In fact, the city was occupied in the first hours of the war. On February 24, at about 9 am, the first columns of hundreds of units of Russian military equipment entered the city. The night before, there was a shooting at the border, the head of one of the villages informed me about it. I realized that the war had begun, and immediately went to work, where I took important documents and seals.

It was physically impossible to make any decisions regarding the evacuation of the civilian population, the creation of checkpoints, any adequate counteraction to the enemy without the available logistics and weapons.

At that time, our terrorist defense, which we tried to create for a month, was never registered, we were not given a single weapon, people were not dressed, not trained, and there was no military of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in Trostyanets. So we consulted with the members of the Terrorism Defense, and I said that the main thing for them at that time was to save their lives, and then we would conduct, so to speak, “guerrilla work,” do something underground and counter the enemy as best we could.

What happened in the city in the first days of the war?

To the border from the last village Semerenki, which is part of our community – 20 kilometers, and from Trostyanets – 35 km. Rashists came to us through the village. Mezenivka and the village of Velyka Pisarivka, there were battles. Border guards retreated behind Trostyanets, the military enlistment office also left, so there were no soldiers left in the city.

Our policemen, who were trying to do something, remained and remained for several days. They patrolled the streets in civilian clothes until Russians approached the police station in tanks. The latter aimed their barrels at the building, fired machine guns, and finally took over the department, placing their liaison officers in it. They also occupied the City Council building across the road, other administrative buildings, the railway station (it has a high roof, from which the terrain is clearly visible), where the Ukrainian flag was shot.

Artillery units were installed near the station, from which Okhtyrka was fired upon. Other equipment was placed in the city between administrative buildings, near shops, apartment houses, realizing that there will be no adequate response from our military on this equipment at such arrangement.

Only on the first day 10 or 12 columns of enemy vehicles passed through Trostyanets / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

Thus, in the first days of the war in Trostyanets, the occupiers created (and until recently it functioned) a kind of center of the forces that pushed into the Sumy region – Sumy, Lebedyn and so on. They fired in parallel on the windows of houses to intimidate people. Only on the first day, 10 or 12 columns of enemy equipment passed through Trostyanets, each of which contained from 50 to 100 units, including 15-20 tanks, as well as self-propelled artillery (ACS), armored personnel carriers and other armored vehicles, fuel trucks etc.

Why did the occupiers capture Trostyanets?

I think that the enemy knew well where and in which cities there are military units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Their intelligence worked here – it’s 100 percent. And there were no soldiers in Trostyanets. There were only officers of the military enlistment office and the police, and they were few and almost unarmed. This is the first.

Secondly, Trostyanets has a very good transport interchange. The city stands on the route Sumy – Kharkiv, there are roads to Sumy, Okhtyrka, Lebedyn, so the racists could push their forces from here to anywhere. Which, in the end, happened. And in the villages where hundreds of units of heavy machinery have passed, there is virtually no road: instead of asphalt, there is, roughly speaking, a tank range – knee-deep caterpillar track, asphalt mixed with earth…

The logic of the enemy is quite clear: it was planned to take Okhtyrka in the ring through Trostyanets in the south, and Sumy in the north / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

The logic of the enemy is quite clear: it was planned to take Okhtyrka in the ring through Trostyanets in the south, and Sumy in the north. A month before the start of the war, I talked about such a possible scenario at various meetings and asked to “cover up” Trostyanets, because we were practically defenseless against a possible enemy attack. There were our soldiers in Okhtyrka who could defend the city with appropriate weapons and repel. The same in Sumy. And in Trostyanets… You won’t go to tanks with a shovel! Moreover, after the enemy’s attack in Okhtyrka and Sumy, it was time to prepare for the attack. We actually did not have such time.

Did the bridge over Vorskla in the village of Klymentove near Okhtyrka, which was blown up by our military, somehow affect the situation in Trostyanets?

Of course. We had nowhere to retreat, because we could evacuate people from Trostyanets to Okhtyrka, which was Ukrainian at the time and is now. However, Okhtyrka itself became more protected. Therefore, in military terms, blowing up the bridge is the right decision. Because this bridge, we understand, it was strategic, and its absence protects from direct passage to Okhtyrka of enemy military units.

It seems to me that the option of possible protection for Trostyanets is not just to “sit back”, but to surrender. But the equipment of the racists is in our city in residential areas, and an adequate answer in such conditions can not be given. Therefore, they must be expelled from Trostyanets and destroyed outside the city in order to divert the threat from Okhtyrka, Lebedyn, and the southern borders of Sumy.

Yuriy Bova: It seems to me that the option of possible protection for Trostyanets is not just to “sit back”, but to surrender / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

Were there any talks with the Russian military and did they offer the local authorities to cooperate?

My policy is as follows: we cannot and will not negotiate anything with the occupiers, and no cooperation is allowed. If someone deems it necessary to conduct any negotiations, let them be conducted at the level of the Office of the President of Ukraine, the regional military administration. But I personally, as the head of the community, as well as employees of the city council, do not intend to ask anything from enemies. We must fight them!

Is the Ukrainian flag flying in Trostyanets today?

The state flag of Ukraine hung over the City Council for the first three days of the occupation, then the racists removed it.

The racists have moved away from the city’s central buildings, says Bova / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

Are the Russians trying to run the city? Did the protege of the occupiers appear here?

There is no representative of the authorities from the Russians, only the military. They have little contact with the local population. For example, people approached them for burial permits, but even that is a big problem.

A few days ago, a few occupiers arrived in Trostyanets from our Armed Forces, and some of their artillery and communications equipment was destroyed in the open. So the racists moved away from the central buildings of the city. Nevertheless, Trostyanets remains occupied inside and completely surrounded on all sides from the outside. Along the perimeter of the city there are enemy checkpoints, which are a great risk to life.

And how do the occupiers behave?

Already on the fifth day of their stay in Trostyanets, they began looting, looting all shops, ATMs, and pharmacies. All this is devastated today. Even second-hand shops were robbed!

They changed into civilian clothes, but walk around the city completely demoralized and intoxicated, firing machine guns at everything in a row. Now they are actively looting local houses, stealing cars, going into apartments, where they take things, jewelry, food. If there are no people at home, they stay there overnight. Judging by the photos sent to me by people, after such “guests” it seems that the whole Golden Horde has passed through the apartment!

By the way, next to the train station we have a 5-storey residential building with individual gas heating in each apartment. The occupiers expelled almost all the inhabitants from it, leaving only a few lying down, and they themselves broke the locks, settled in apartments and live there comfortably and comfortably.

The Russians are afraid of air strikes by our planes and the work of artillery of the Armed Forces. So they went from house to house, took people out of the basements and forced them to sit at night on the streets near the occupiers’ equipment. In this way, the orcs terrorize the inhabitants of Trostyanets and actually hold them hostage under the guise of civilians.

Orcs terrorize residents of Trostyanets and actually hold them hostage under the guise of civilians / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

And about a week ago, in one of the villages of the community, the occupiers deployed an S-300 medium-range anti-aircraft missile system, also creating a “living shield” of the villagers and placing their tanks near almost every yard.

Is there anything left from the “past life” that works in the city as before?

The local hospital has not been injured yet and is working 24/7, providing the necessary assistance. But so far there is only one ambulance left in Trostyanets. The occupiers control the ambulance substation, do not allow doctors to go on all calls – only to children and in emergencies. Doctors were warned that they would be shot if they left on their own.

By the way, there was information that the occupiers shot people right on the streets of Trostyanets. It’s true?

Yes, there have been such cases. For example, the chairman of the street committee from the street was killed. Michurin Anna Samoilova. No one who wanted to come and pick up the body was allowed in for another three days. Snipers fired on the territory. The other day, a young man who was returning home in the evening was shot dead. Just shot in the street! And on the street. Shevchenko was shot dead by the head of an agricultural enterprise who was driving to work in the morning.

Some people who died in the city were not allowed to be buried for up to five days. Horror!

The city is full of Russian soldiers, the whole city is under fire… If for the first five days they were still engaged in their, apparently, purely military affairs, then, when their own supplies ran out, the occupiers began looting, robbery and murder in Trostyanets. That’s why people are now trying to leave the city in general. At present, under conditions of full occupation, it is impossible to count the exact number of killed citizens, because, according to people, sometimes Trostyans took corpses from the streets home and stored them in cellars, barns so that dogs would not eat their bodies.

The occupiers started looting, robberies, murders in Trostyanets / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

What damage is there in the city today?

The other day our activists came to the administrative building, so all safes, doors, tables were broken, all office equipment, chandeliers were broken – everything that is possible. There is no living space from the City Council, the former district state administration, the police department and so on. The door to the Golitsyn Museum was knocked out or blown up. We haven’t been there yet, but I think we took everything out – paintings and valuable exhibits. In the historic building “Round yard”, where we traditionally held a number of national and international festivals, the occupiers drove anti-aircraft anti-aircraft guns and demolished the gates and damaged the walls of the building. Currently, the prosecutor’s office is on fire, a pharmacy and two shops at the station. Ukrposhta’s offices and cars were smashed, the ambulance station was broken into, where everything was smashed, medicines and equipment were stolen… Heavy machinery practically destroyed the central square of the city: where roses bloomed until recently, today there is a “field” plowed with tanks. Even in the Palace for Children and Youth, toys and easels were broken, and all the costumes in which the children performed were cut in the dressing room with knives.

People have repeatedly seen the occupiers drive various vehicles to shops in different parts of the city and load them with looted equipment – refrigerators, televisions, electrical and other goods. I don’t know where they will take all the loot.

They also robbed the world-famous Trostyanets chocolate factory. Heavy machinery was driven into the territory and the administrative building was completely destroyed, warehouses were smashed, and then KamAZ trucks removed products and raw materials from there, all equipment and computers were smashed. The only thing left in the warehouses – a little flour and oil – is distributed to people, as well as to volunteers who bake bread and also distribute it to people in different neighborhoods. These are meager stocks that can be used now.

The enemy destroys the city’s infrastructure / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

Three new ambulances and municipal buses were also stolen (as were the cars of Trostyan residents). Moreover, the racists came to our funeral service and wanted to steal her cars, and when they could not start them, they just shot the cars. All vehicles were taken away from the garages of the City Council and public utilities. So now in Trostyanets there is no passenger public transport, no freight, no services, because all that moves through the city are cars stolen by the occupiers from the community. Some of our municipal buses stand at checkpoints, and behind them in the bushes are hidden tanks.

In the administrative buildings of the authorities due to frost to minus 15 degrees and in the absence of heating, all systems thawed and leaked, everything was blown up, broken and shattered.

Do communal services manage to work in such conditions and carry out repair work if necessary?

The general situation in the city is very bad. Trostyanets now resembles footage from a horror movie. But this is not a movie, but a reality. Utilities are trying, so to speak, to operate individually what they can – water intakes, repair electricity and gas supply networks, areas of damaged and demolished high-voltage lines. For example, the villages of our Trostyanets city territorial community Martynivka, Mashchanka, Buimer have been without electricity for about 14 days now, because the high-voltage line has been cut there. Electricians went there to repair and asked the Russian military to let them pass. So the racists beat our workers, took away their phones and did not let them pass. In Trostyanets itself, three and partially two neighborhoods were completely de-energized, leaving thousands without electricity.

In Trostyanets itself, three and partially two neighborhoods were completely de-energized / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

One conclusion: Russian soldiers are like beasts, like barbarians, full of aggression, and leave only pain. And 20 days of full occupation of the city is a real terror of the racist civilians.

How do people live in the city? Are they always at home or in shelters and basements?

Whoever was able to leave left. About 2,500 people left Trostyanets in evacuation columns through humanitarian corridors, which were organized on March 10, 12 and 15. But the biggest problem is the delivery of products. Nobody imports them! People have been on their own for three weeks now. And for those who do not live in the private sector, the products are running out.

Do you help the citizens in this situation?

So. Helped while they had the opportunity. We distributed free of charge to people stocks of products that were in kindergartens, schools – potatoes, eggs, meat and so on. Distributed all the stocks of medicine that we had.

But all this ends with people, and nothing is imported into the city.

That is, we can say that the city is currently in a humanitarian catastrophe?

I would not say that it is already a humanitarian catastrophe, but there is a humanitarian crisis. And trying to bring food and medicine, basic necessities without the permission of the racists – is deadly.

Humanitarian crisis in Trostyanets / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

Are the shelling of Okhtyrka continuing from Trostyanets?

For the second week in a row, enemy shelling of Okhtyrka has been going on with the “Hail”, “Hurricane”, anti-aircraft missile systems and everything else that can be fired from the ground, including from Trostyanets.

Having occupied our city, the Rashists have already started shelling the residential quarters of Trostyanets itself. For example, the Perekalky microdistrict, located on the outskirts of Okhtyrka, was shelled from the square near the railway station. Enemy artillery also fired at our former Elektropobutprilad plant, killing three citizens, including a minor. Also a few days ago, the village of Soldatske was brutally shelled by “Hail” and three air bombs were dropped on it. Fires raged everywhere for a long time after the shelling.

How did the occupiers agree to evacuate the residents of Trostyanets through humanitarian corridors? How was the evacuation process?

I don’t know how they agreed, because negotiations on such an evacuation from the Ukrainian side were held at the level of the state leadership. And the evacuation process was not quite “smooth”. In particular, on March 10, the Russians did not allow the column to move from Trostyanets through the city center, and opened fire. We had to quickly coordinate another route. On March 12, due to the shooting, the place of landing in the evacuation vehicle was changed. And on March 14, the racists wanted to carry out a provocation: they drove people into fake “green corridors”, took away mobile phones en masse and tried to take out their citizens with their stolen vehicles in an unknown direction.

On March 15, while the first part of the convoy of 130 cars drove more or less calmly, the occupiers simply did not let go of the second part – more than 150 cars: they fired machine guns, took away everyone’s mobile phones and burned them, leaving people completely unattended. tongue, held all until the evening. In the end, most of the cars from the last column were able to leave the city.

We need to think about how to completely release Trostyanets, said the mayor / photo facebook.com/Yuriy Bova

In general, the number of people who want to leave the occupied city is eloquently shown by the fact that on March 12, a bus with 45 seats was packed with 83 people. They rode almost one on top of the other, with a broken window, just to stay away from the enemy occupation.

But the main thing is that we managed to evacuate about 1,500 people from Trostyanets on March 10 and 12, as well as evacuate almost 1,000 locals on March 15. Mostly those who desperately needed such help – women with young children, pregnant women, people with disabilities and the elderly.

Do you, as the mayor, now work underground?

I know that the racists were walking around the city with my photos and looking for the mayor. Not finding it, they came to my house and drove a tank through the gate straight into the yard, demolished the garage, went into the house. Neighbors were then in the house and said that everything was destroyed there, there was no living space: everything was turned upside down, shot and so on.

And I work in the current conditions, of course, from the underground. Basically, I know about all the problems of the city and together with my team I try to solve them, to help people. That is, how the government works, but not publicly.

How are people in general now?

The mood during this time was completely different. After the enemy’s attack, people still did not understand that this was not a “riot”, but a real war of annihilation. So, if at first people talked more about the usual household problems to which they are accustomed, today adequate citizens sit at home, learn to survive on their own, to help each other.

But there are also inadequate ones who go to the smashed shops and plunder what the occupiers did not plunder. The latter look with smiles at the fact that someone is carrying a box from the store. But we already know about all the local marauders and after the war we will definitely bring them to justice.

As the head of the community, what help would you ask now from the leadership of the region, the state, our military?

The main request is to try to bring food to people in any way! I understand that this will not solve the problem of protecting the city and will not free Trostyanets from occupation. After all, it is possible that the occupiers will take this food from the townspeople again. And not everyone will be able to leave here, it is unrealistic, because there are bedridden people, the elderly, the sick – many people who, for various reasons, will not leave their homes.

We need to think about how to completely release Trostyanets. We will not forgive Russia’s enemies a single drop of blood, a single lost life, a single centimeter of our mutilated land, terror and genocide of the citizens of the independent state of Ukraine. We will remember and honor the name of each of our defenders and each deceased countryman. And we will restore Trostyanets all together so that the city will flourish and be famous for its chocolate and the status of the festival capital of the left bank of Ukraine.

Vitaly Kokhan

(C)UNIAN 2022