When the eastern Ukrainian city of Lyman came under Russian shelling in April last year, many residents of a block of flats dubbed the “Triangle” fled to their basements and decided to live there. Today, months after the city’s liberation, they still do. The Washington Post has now visited the people there (source here).
The life of the inhabitants takes place largely in the dark, write the “Post” journalists. Only recently, they say, has electricity been restored. Water is only supplied by a pump in the inner courtyard of the block of flats. Because there is little government help, the residents got together to help each other.
Cooking together, cleaning, comforting – “we celebrate New Year’s Eve together, holidays, birthdays”, 68-year-old Nadya, who lives in the basement with her family, tells the newspaper. “It unites us, hard or not, we had to get used to it. We had nowhere else to go.”
In the first few days, she and her family could not have slept at all, reports again to Zoya. “Now I sleep quite well, but there are moments when you hear grenades and that scares me again.” Zoya is a retired postwoman, now she helps in the kitchen and distributes food to the residents. She has now gotten used to life in the basement, “it’s more relaxed for me to be in the basement”.
What is reminiscent of the old life is the necklace she wears. It dangles the keys of some neighbors who she hopes will return. But the population of Lyman has shrunk: According to the mayor, there were 22,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion, and about 6,000 are still there.
According to the Washington Post, talks about reconstruction are premature for the residents of the “triangle”., life remains in limbo. “There is a certain emptiness, a certain anger, there is no more happiness,” says Nadya. “We are waiting for peace. We are waiting for the end of the matter.”
The news of the day at a glance:
- Will Yevgeny Prigozhin become Vladimir Putin’s adversary? In an interview, the Wagner boss can be staged in a similar way to the Russian head of state. Prigozhin’s criticism of the state, on the other hand, is becoming ever sharper. You’ll find more about it here.
- Iran’s and Russia’s foreign ministers have Moscow talked about the future of the nuclear negotiations. This was reported by the Iranian news agency ISNA after a meeting between the Iranian chief diplomat Hussein Amirabdollahian and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov. This and more in the Newsblog.
- Russia says it has suspended any information from the US about its nuclear activities. It is about any form of information from this area, says Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov. This included nuclear tests.
- The head of the UN nuclear agency IAEA, Rafael Grossi, has arrived at the contested Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in south-eastern Ukraine. An IAEA spokesman said that Grossi wanted to get an overview of the situation on site.
- According to international military experts, Russia has recently gained ground in the battle for the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Russian forces have taken an additional five percent of Bakhmut in the past seven days and currently control almost 65 percent of the area, it said.
- According to media reports, Spain will soon deliver six older Type 2A4 Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The delivery will take place immediately after Easter, the well-informed newspaper “El País” reported, citing the left-wing government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.
- After threats from the Russian ambassador in Sweden against Stockholm’s planned NATO membership Sweden wants to order this. The Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said that the “obvious attempt to exert influence” was to be clearly denounced.
- According to British secret services, Ukrainian troops have relieved the battle for Bakhmut. “One of the major achievements of recent Ukrainian operations was probably pushing back Russian Wagner Group fighters from Road 0506,” the UK MoD said.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy invites China’s head of state Xi Jinping to visit his country. “We are ready to see him here,” Zelenskyy told the AP news agency.
- Russia begins military maneuvers with the Yars ICBM system. The exercises with the mobile Yars system will be carried out in three Russian regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said, without naming the regions.
- Deputy Prime Minister of Ukraine Iryna Vereshchuk appealed to Russian citizens not to adopt children from Ukraine. “I strongly recommend Russian citizens not to adopt Ukrainian orphans illegally abducted from the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine,” she says.
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