Resident of Russian-held Horlivka: ‘We have nothing’

Outgoing explosions are heard regularly. According to a Russia-backed separatist fighter, who identifies himself only as Slava, the fighters are merely responding to Ukrainian-fired shells. “They started, and we simply respond,” he explained, although shells fired from Ukrainian positions were not heard anywhere near Horlivka on night.

Once the sun has gone down the streets are empty. People walking on the streets raise suspicion and are likely to be taken in for questioning.

“There are Ukrainian spies operating in Horlivka, because this city is very close to the frontline,” Slava told the Kyiv Post. “During the last few months as fighting kept increasing we have arrested a couple of spies, and we have reason to believe there are dozens operating here.”

Horlivka, whose pre-war population of 272,000 people has dipped to 180,000 today, has been severely damaged during Russia’s war against Ukraine.

People who remain in the city spend most of their nights in bomb shelters in extreme circumstances. Some by choice, others simply because they don’t have money to leave the destructed town.

Maria Pronin, a 63-year-old woman, stands in front of a partly destroyed apartment building not far from the center of Horlivka.

In her hands, she holds a couple of roses.

“I need to at least bring some rest downstairs,” she said, as minutes after she walks down the stairs that leads to the bomb shelter where six families live. “We have nothing, but these roses are a symbol of love. That’s all we need in these tough times.”

The further the stairs lead down, the darker, dustier and smellier it gets.

“Be careful,” Pronin kept saying, touching the walls to not get disoriented in the bomb basement. Every sound, every voice, echoes in the bomb shelter. A small curtain separates two areas where each three families live. The dust and unhealthy conditions result in different spider webs in the two respective areas.

Then, suddenly a loud cry echoes in the shelter. It’s a young child. “We think she has diarrhea,” Pronin said, as she then hurried herself to the 20-year-old mother of the 9-month-old child. “She’s left behind by her husband, and now she needs to take care of two children. She has enough worries on her head. It’s emotionally too much for her.”

There are no doctors in Horlivka that have tested the nine-month-old baby, and living in extreme conditions in a bomb shelter will make things only worse. “She doesn’t want to leave Horlivka,” Pronin then whispered so nobody could hear her. “She’s afraid of the Nazis,” she added, referring to the Ukrainians on the other side of the front.

“We simply don’t know what to believe,” Pronin said.

She, too, has chosen to stay in Horlivka rather than to move to Ukraine.

“I don’t have money,” Pronin explained, adding that she doesn’t want to be put in a shelter program. “If I’m registered in a shelter program, I become possession of the Ukrainian authorities that will tell me what to do and not to do. It’s inhumane,” she vaguely explained.

According to a spokesperson of the Horlivka Regional City Administration, humanitarian aid is being distributed, but it’s simply not enough for all people that need it in Horlivka.

“Lately we’ve seen an increase of humanitarian aid being blocked at Ukrainian checkpoints, and for now we mostly depend on humanitarian aid coming from Russia.”

And as the Ukrainian authorities keeps implementing more rules to further cut off the occupied territories in eastern Ukraine, only humanitarian aid from Russia will be let through.

However, the question remains how much more money Russia is willing to send in to the separatist-held areas, and how long it will take until the Russian government will send less humanitarian aid to the Russia-held territories in eastern Ukraine.

One resident, who didn’t want to be identified because she is critical of the separatists, said it is only a matter of time before Russia cuts off aid supplies.

“Russia has made clear that it doesn’t want to take these territories. It’s just a provocation to the West what they’re doing now as fighting increases. Its involvement will stop, but when? Nobody knows,” she told the Kyiv Post/

For people living in extreme conditions like Pronin, neither the war’s end nor the suffering it has caused looks like it will end anytime soon.

“Sometimes I just hope I wake up and it all was nothing but a nightmare,” she said.