Themes by tag: occupation

Olena Zinova is an entrepreneur from Kherson. For more than 20 years, the woman has run her own shop and sold embroidered Ukrainian shirts, towels, jewelry and souvenirs with Petrykivka painting. When the enemy occupied Olena’s hometown in 2022, she had to carefully hide all things with Ukrainian symbols and close the store, because the russians were looking for and destroying everything that was even remotely connected to Ukraine. Olena had lived under the occupation for three months, when she finally decided to leave and take a collection of embroidered shirts and the Ukrainian flag with her. Together with her family, the woman managed to pass through 33 russian roadblocks, even though each one could be the last, Olena says.

The entrepreneur’s family settled in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk region, where she immediately began to rebuild her business. Olena made another shop from scratch, had renovations done there and bought equipment to replace what she had had to leave in Kherson. Nowadays, clothes from Olena’s shop aren’t worn only in Kryvyi Rih, as she also receives orders from abroad. The woman dreams that soon she will be able to return to her hometown and once again please customers with Ukrainian embroidered shirts.

For reference: on November 11, 2022, the Defense Forces of Ukraine liberated Kherson from the occupiers. Since then russia has been constantly shelling the city and killing Kherson civilians. 

• culture
• occupation
• reconstruction
• women
• Dnipro

Volodymyr Sahaidak is the director of the Children’s Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation in Kherson Oblast. With the outbreak of a full-blown war and the occupation of the area, he and staff moved to the Center in their care for 52 orphans. According to Volodymyr, the occupiers tried to take the children from Ukraine to Russia under various pretexts, including allegedly being abducted to undergo “rehabilitation”. However, the staff of the institution hindered their plan’s progress. Volodymyr hid the orphans, leaving them in the care of different people: his relatives and the Center’s staff. Later, the children were secretly transferred to the territory controlled by Ukraine: a unique story was devised and even documents were forged to pass the enemy-controlled checkpoints. 

Now the Children’s Center for Social and Psychological Rehabilitation building has been empty, all the children have been successfully evacuated. Most of them are either with extended families or in foster care willing to provide support for them.

Volodymyr Sahaidak lives in the Kherson region and is ready to talk to the news media representatives, both offline and online.

• children
• occupation
• Kherson

The Kyiv Regional Center for Mental Health was captured by the occupiers at the beginning of russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The russian military settled in the facility. They stole valuable equipment from there. The center itself was badly damaged.

After the de-occupation, the restoration works began in the medical facility: in particular, the medical and psychological rehabilitation department was recently opened. It was created on the basis of one of the Center’s branches, which suffered the most during the full-scale invasion. Here the specialists will help military personnel, their relatives and civilians who suffered from the russian federation’s aggression. In total, more than 20 types of rehabilitation services will be provided to patients. Among other things, VR glasses will be used for recovery.

Journalists can learn more about the center’s operation and restoration efforts, interview the management of the facility, talk to doctors and, if possible, patients.

For reference: the Kyiv Regional Center for Mental Health is a specialized medical facility providing qualified inpatient medical examination, care and both social and vocational rehabilitation of patients with mental disorders.

• occupation
• reconstruction
• russian crimes
• Kyiv

On December 18, Media Center Ukraine – Ukrinform will host the press conference entitled Persecution and humiliation: the reality of being a lawyer in occupied Crimea”

Participants:

• Daria Svyrydova, Ukraine 5AM Coalition expert, Law Firm AZONES partner;
• Roman Martynovskyy, lawyer, who left Sevastopol after the start of occupation, Lead Expert at Regional Center for Human Rights NGO;
• Vitaliy Sekretar, First Deputy Head of the Prosecutor’s Office of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol;
• Illya Kostin, lawyer, Head of the Department of Military Justice Development and Interaction with Law Enforcement Agencies of the Main Military Justice Directorate of the Ministry of Defense, Member of the Ukrainian Bar Association Board;

Topics of focus:

• What are the risks, the Crimean lawyers who continued working, acting in good faith as the occupation dragged on, handle?
• What are the strategies of the occupation authorities to put pressure on independent lawyers?
• What are the stigma-associated risk factors of indiscriminately labeling all lawyers who pursue a career under occupation as “collaborators”?

• occupation
• Kyiv

On December 8, the audiovisual exhibition “Voices of De-Occupation” will be opened in Kyiv. In addition, the results of the project “Brave to Document-2” will be presented there. The event is organized by the charitable organization “Brave Foundation” with the support of the Prague Civil Society Centre.

The audiovisual exhibition will tell the stories of people from Chernihiv and Kharkiv regions whose homes were destroyed or damaged due to the russian occupation and russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The exhibition will present the stories of 23 owners of damaged houses both in audio recording and text forms featuring photographs.

The participants of the event will include:

– Vitaliy Selyk, Director of the “Brave” foundation,

– a representative of the Prague Civil Society Centre (TBC),

– Yevheniia Papatsenko, representative of the Brave to Restore branch in Kharkiv region,

– Alina Krupianyk, “Brave to Document-2” Project Manager,

– Liudmyla Petrukhan-Shcherbakova, “Dare to Document-2” Project Manager.

The event requires registration.

• casualties
• occupation
• russian crimes
• Kyiv

The official opening of the learning ‘mini hub’ in the liberated Rudnytske village in Kyiv Oblast will be held On November 30. The settlement was severely damaged during the occupation of the region in the spring of 2022: private houses were utterly destroyed, and the school and other infrastructure facilities were smashed up. The children, eventually, had no place to study, attend after-school clubs, or just get together.

Thanks to the grant and philanthropists, we managed to create a hub where teachers can give lectures, the youth can organize their leisure time, and children can stay online to do their homework in case the power is out.

Event prior accreditation is required.

For reference: The learning ‘mini hub’ in Rudnytske in the Kyiv region, was created by the MHP-Gromadi Foundation with the support of ISAR Ednannia as part of the Ukraine Civil Society Sectoral Support Activity project.

• casualties
• children
• occupation
• reconstruction
• Kyiv

Heorhii and Olha Chervienkovs founded a cannery in Posad-Pokrovske, Kherson region, 9 years ago. Before the full-scale invasion began, the plant’s output was more than 100 tons of canned goods per month. When the start of the full-scale invasion started in 2022, the russians occupied Kherson region and destroyed almost all the villages on the front line.

Heorhii and Olha found out that their cannery had been destroyed already after the de-occupation of their town and their return home. Entrepreneurs set to work and six months after the de-occupation, Heorhii and Olha managed to launch the first production line. At first, they had to use power generators to work, and there was a shortage of workers, as some employees had joined the army or left the community. Currently, the couple is working to return the plant to its pre-war capacity.

• occupation
• reconstruction
• Kherson

Volodymyr Moisei is a master of sports in powerlifting. His story began with an ordinary trip to the gym. And within a year, with the help of the coach, Volodymyr met his first standard.

In 2019, the athlete got into a traffic accident and lost his arm. After two and a half months, he began his return to professional sports, developed a special strap to help him lift a bar with extreme weights and thought about the world record. When the Great War began, Volodymyr’s hometown, Berdyansk, was occupied. Due to the injury, the man could not join the army and took up volunteering. Later, he was able to evacuate his family from Berdyansk to Switzerland, and he himself returned to Ukraine.

In March 2023, Volodymyr visited the U.S.-based “Arnold Sports Festival” – as an adaptive athlete in the weight class of under 100 kilograms, he lifted the weight of 260 kilograms and set a world record in powerlifting. The athlete dedicated his record to the Armed Forces of Ukraine and his family.

For reference: Volodymyr Moisei is ready to communicate with journalists, both online and offline by prior arrangement.

• casualties
• occupation
• volunteers

Nataliia Plakhotniuk was born in Luhansk region and dreamed of becoming a teacher from an early age. She graduated from a university in the east, gained her first teaching experience, and later met her future husband. Pavlo is a professional soldier, who has been in the ranks of the Armed Forces since 2004. A few years ago, the couple moved to Bucha, Kyiv region.

On February 24, 2022, Pavlo and Nataliia learned about the beginning of the big war. The husband was immediately called up for duty, and Nataliia and her children left Bucha only on February 25, when russian tanks had already entered nearby Hostomel. After the liberation of Kyiv region and returning home, Nataliia realized that she wanted to teach children and open her own business. She learned about the Smartum training center franchise, got state financial support for military personnel and their families, and opened her training center in Bucha. Currently, 45 children study in Nataliia’s class. They study mental arithmetic, speed reading and English as well as prepare for school. 

• children
• occupation
• women
• Kyiv

Oksana, born in Kherson, has 27 years of teaching experience (pursuing a career in out-of-school learning). At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Oksana headed to her sister’s house on the left bank of the Kherson region and ended up in an occupied area. She managed to escape on June 1, 2023. Now she lives in a public housing community in the Kyiv region, and since September she has been holding Ukrainian language and literature classes for 9th and 11th graders in-person and online. Oksana gives online lessons in one of the kitchens of the social housing so as not to disturb other IDPs living nearby. 

In addition to teaching essential school subjects, she also runs the Dzhura club, an all-Ukrainian game for children and youth, a form of extracurricular work on the patriotic and moral education of children

For reference: November 11, 2023, marks the one-year anniversary of retaking Kherson. Also, during last year’s counteroffensive in southern Ukraine, the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated some districts of the Kherson region and part of the Mykolaiv region on the right bank of the Dnipro River.

• children
• occupation
• women
• Kyiv