Themes by tag: Kharkiv

Before becoming a farmer, Natalia Koval taught at the Kharkiv National University of Economics. In 2011, her husband suggested starting a farm and Natalia agreed. In 2022, their family farm in one of the villages of Kharkiv region had more than three hundred cows and 12 employees. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the farm was occupied.

Families with children remained in the village, and the farm became their salvation. After all, milk was distributed there for free, as well as bread baked by farm employees. The farm had its own generator, and thus electricity. Sometimes one could even catch a mobile connection there.

Occupiers took Natalia’s husband “to the basement,” he miraculously managed to get out. Today, the farm is recovering after all the horrors it experienced.

For reference: on September 6, 2022, Ukrainian troops launched a major counteroffensive in Kharkiv region. Subsequently, Kharkiv region was completely de-occupied.

• animals
• occupation
• volunteers
• women
• Kharkiv

The sculpture “Cruise Missile” by artist Illia Chornomaz consists of fragments of shells that were hitting the Kharkiv region. During the first days of the enemy invasion, the 24-year-old man was hiding in his workshop. And then he got down to work. Illia spent a year of his life and 500 kilograms of Russian missile fragments on the metal sculpture. He managed to find and collect all the material, thanks to the rescuers. With his sculpture, Illia wants to show the importance of art even in such challenging times. And it also aims to demonstrate the tension experienced by a person who has been living in war for two consecutive years. The “Cruise Missile” is planned to be sold at auction, and the proceeds will be used to support the military defending the Kharkiv region. 

Illia Chornomaz is in Kharkiv, ready to talk to journalists, both online and in person. 

• culture
• occupation
• russian crimes
• Kharkiv

Bohdan is 27 and was born in Donetsk. He studied at the Donetsk National Medical University, but in 2014 he had to transfer to Kyiv and continue his education.

Before the full-scale war, he worked as a cardiologist in private medical centers. After February 24, 2022, he joined the FRIDA Ukraine Ukrainian-Israeli medical volunteer mission. He provided medical assistance for over 50 medical missions. He treated people in the de-occupied and frontline territories. He had to deal with his work accompanied by the sounds of explosions and doing his job in shelters. During this time, the doctor conducted lifesaving missions to Ukrainians in Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Kherson, Sumy, Donetsk, Mykolaiv, and Dnipro regions.

Recently, Bohdan became the head of a project launched by FRIDA Ukraine in the Kharkiv region together with Polska Misja Medyczna: mobile clinics operate in the region. The team of doctors will have patient appointments in different parts of the de-occupied Kharkiv region for six months.

Journalists are also welcome to cover how mobile clinics operate in the Kharkiv region.

• casualties
• doctors
• Kharkiv
• Kyiv

At the end of July, a temporary shelter was opened in Kharkiv for representatives of low mobility groups and people with disabilities who are being evacuated from frontline communities. They, for example, take care of bedridden people, people in wheelchairs or on crutches. The shelter is designed for 30 people. One can stay there for up to three weeks. But, if necessary, the period of stay can be extended.

For reference: This shelter has been created as a result of a joint initiative of Vostok SOS Charitable Foundation and Volunteer-68 Center for Humanitarian Aid.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, representatives of “Volunteer-68” have been taking care of people with disabilities and physical disorders. Among other things, volunteers take people out of shelled areas and provide humanitarian aid.

• casualties
• volunteers
• Kharkiv
• evacuation

Niels is a firefighter in Germany.  Back in the spring of 2022, he arrived in Kharkiv to help assist. Later, he performed tasks with rescuers in the Donetsk region: he eliminated the consequences of enemy shelling, extinguished fires, and cleared rubble. The rescuer also worked in the Kherson region in the first days after the Kakhovka dam collapse. 

During this time, the volunteer rescuer went home for only a few months.  And recently, he got back to the Kharkiv region again.

• volunteers
• Kharkiv

In a training center in Kharkiv region, dogs are being trained to help to demine the Ukrainian lands. The project was launched by Anti-Terrorist Operation veteran and professional dog trainer Serhii Lukinov last November. The Ukrainian Veterans Fund helped with the funding. Currently, 5 German shepherds are being trained at the center. All of them are less than a year old. They are being taught to look for explosives.

For reference: Serhii has been working as a dog trainer for 37 years. In particular, in 2021, a man trained guide dogs. However, during russia’s full-scale invasion, Serhii once again volunteered to defend the country. The man is currently undergoing rehabilitation.

• animals
• military
• Kharkiv

Before the start of the full-scale invasion, the company of Kharkiv-based Ihor Yefimenko was doing car repairs. After February 24, 2022, his team reformatted and began manufacturing level 5 body armor for the military. When a relative of Ihor Yefimenko lost his toes due to a mine explosion, the entrepreneur realized that his team should also develop protection for sappers and EOD experts. They took the Canadian model as a basis, adapted it to the needs of the Ukrainian military and rescuers, and began production. The weight of each boot is 4 kilograms, and the team uses 3D printers to manufacture the parts. Ihor Yefimenko explains that boots are not a magic cure, they will not be able to completely prevent injury, but they still allow those who use them to avoid traumatic amputation.

• military
• volunteers
• Kharkiv

FRIDA Ukraine, together with Polska Misja Medyczna, is launching a new project in the Kharkiv Oblast: mobile clinics will operate in the region. A team of doctors and healthcare workers will have patient appointments in different parts of the de-occupied Kharkiv region for 6 months.

The doctors have already undergone a series of training sessions to be qualified to examine local residents in any condition. In particular, a course was held by The HALO Trust, during which doctors were taught the rules of safe behavior in war conditions and told about the risks of handling explosive devices.

For reference: FRIDA Ukraine is a Ukrainian-Israeli mission of medical volunteers aimed at helping the civilian population.

• doctors
• volunteers
• Kharkiv

14-year-old Taisiia cannot fully engage in her favorite activity – drawing, because there is no bomb shelter in her art school. The institution is located in Saltivka (Kharkiv district, which suffered greatly as a result of russia’s full-scale invasion). The shelling even caused school windows to shatter. Currently, they are planning to auction off drawings, the money will be used to set up the bomb shelter.

The shelter will allow children to work offline and return to in-person communication.

After the victory, the students of the school plan to use the shelter as a gallery in the future.

• children
• russian crimes
• Kharkiv

The international organization “The Halo Trust” had been helping to demine the territory of Ukraine even before the start of the full-scale invasion. Currently, 800 Ukrainians are involved in mine clearing efforts in 5 regions: Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Sumy, Kyiv and Chernihiv. “The Halo Trust” also works at the sites of flooding caused by the breach of the Kakhovka Dam. In the last eight weeks alone, sappers discovered more than 5,000 mines in Kharkiv and Mykolaiv regions.

The international organization “The Halo Trust” surveys recently liberated Ukrainian lands, using the methodology tested in more than 30 countries of the world.

For reference: According to the State Emergency Service, 30% of the territory of Ukraine is mined. According to some assessments, it may take more than 10 years to clear the land.

• russian crimes
• Chernihiv
• Kharkiv
• Kyiv
• Mykolaiv
• Sumy
• demining