82-year-old widow flees embattled Vovchansk as Russian attacks devastate city

Under a relentless barrage of Russian attacks, much of Ukraine’s city of Vovchansk is now reduced to ruin, forcing many residents to flee. Among them is 82-year-old Tatyana Bekaryuk, who lost her husband to a direct airstrike on their home. “Imagine what it’s like to lose a person in a minute,” she said. “We lived together for 60 years.”

Moments before the missile struck their home in the northeastern Kharkiv region city in May this year, Bekaryuk had gone out into her garden to observe the streets after hearing explosions. “My husband was drinking tea in the house and I went out into the yard,” she told Context. “It was a direct hit on our house.”

Russian troops captured Vovchansk on the first day of the full invasion in 2022 and occupied the city for six months, a period during which they kidnapped, tortured, and killed local resisdents and some government officials. Despite Vovchansk being liberated by Ukrainian forces later that same year, the city has faced a fresh onslaught in recent weeks as Moscow steps up its attacks.

On 10 May, after Russian troops crossed the northeastern border, Vovchansk came under intense shelling and has since seen fierce fighting. Ukrainian authorities began a rush to evacuate civilians who had remained in the city, and some who were fleeing their homes for the second time.

Bekaryuk explained that she and her husband did not want to evacuate in the early days because they didn’t think their lives would be in danger. “When the evacuation had just started, I thought we would get away with it, that we were old and no one would touch us,” she said. But less than two weeks later, she added, “I remember five houses were burning in the street.”

Many residents fleeing Vovchansk and nearby villages are taken to an aid distribution centre in Buhaivka in the Kharkiv region, where they receive medical care and logistical assistance. Bekaryuk was taken there by the Ukrainian military, after which volunteers took her to a shelter for the elderly where she remains today.

Many of the residents at the elderly shelter where Bekaryuk resides have lost homes and family members to the war. “I have nothing left, no documents, no photos,” she said. “Everything was burnt down.”

A report published this week by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says that the Ukrainian armed forces have recently regained some of the positions lost in Vovchansk.

Olha Kleitman, founder of the Kharkiv Shelter for the Elderly which hosts Bekaryuk, says some of the internally displaced people are fleeing Vovchansk for a second time and many arrive under significant psychological stress.

“The condition of the people who have been brought from Vovchansk and other frontline towns is simply terrible,” she said. “When the full-scale invasion began, they were already living under occupation and thought it was over. It’s very difficult psychologically.”

Among the shelter’s recent arrivals is a 92-year-old woman who tried to escape from Vovchansk to Kharkiv by foot – which is a nearly 70 kilometre journey, but volunteers found her and drove her there. Many desperate residents have tried the same. “My neighbour with three dogs and acquaintances from Volchansk also tried to go on foot to Kharkiv,” said Bekaryuk. “On the way someone … picked them up.”

The dire situation in the city is also forcing some animal welfare organisations to evacuate animals. Yaryna Vintoniuk, from the NGO Animal Rescue Kharkiv, told Context that evacuation of animals is being carried out in perilous conditions and is struggling to accommodate all the animals and that some are adopted by people abroad after the necessary paperwork.

“Once there was targeted mortar fire behind our evacuation car … the situation is consistently difficult,” the 30-year-old woman said. “Over the past 15 days, we have rescued a thousand animals. Before that, we had already rescued 1,500 animals.”

In addition to embattled Vovchansk, people are also being evacuated from several other frontline towns and cities in the Kharkiv region where Russia’s air forces are frequently attacking, says Viktoriia Pisna, a psychologist at the Humanitarian Mission of Proliska.

“Due to damage to the infrastructure, there is no electricity or communication,” she said. “People are in complete silence and information collapse.”

Many evacuees arrive wounded. “There was a man with a shrapnel wound below the waist, with his fingers almost torn off and his legs damaged,” she recalls. “There were several women with shrapnel wounds all over their bodies.”

The most difficult moments for the psychologist, however, are when people whose lives are in imminent danger refuse to escape.

“There are some people who hope that the disaster will pass them by,” she added. “This is the hardest moment for me. We don’t know what’s going to happen to them in 10 minutes, let alone in a day.”

Photo: Vlada Liberova