Ihor Ivanovych is 72 years old. He served in Murmansk in a special forces unit, and later as a border guard. He came back to Mariupol because he wanted to live in Ukraine: he was born in Lviv region and has always considered himself a Ukrainian. After spending 35 days in the basement, the 70-year-old man escapes out of fear that he will be handed over to the occupiers for his pro-Ukrainian views.
FEBRUARY 24
I met the beginning of the war at home. My wife and I lived in an apartment on the eighth floor in the Zakhidnyi neighborhood. I did not think that Putin would attack Ukraine because I knew the armed forces of the Soviet Union very well. It was a very rotten structure. When I was in the service, I saw the equipment of a motorized infantry regiment going out for training. Tanks and armored personnel carriers were constantly breaking down, every 200 meters they would break down. And this was in the Soviet Union, where there was not as much corruption as there is now in Russia. But Putin still found himself without a head.
On February 25, at 11 am, my wife and I were at home. Suddenly, the house was hit – a rocket hit the opposite side of the first entrance. Fortunately, we lived in the second entrance. Almost immediately another missile came, it hit the pumping station in the yard. The plane must have launched two missiles, I think they were aiming at the pump room, but one hit the house. It hit the eighth floor, several floors fell apart. After that, my wife and I went down to the basement and never came out for a long time. In total, we spent 35 days there. It was freezing cold throughout March. It was like a curse – minus 7-8 degrees. It was impossible to be in the yard.
There were many wholesale bases along the Zaporizhzhia highway. We would go to them and take what we could find: some potatoes, some other things. The main thing was to bring water, because in our basement there were only women and all pensioners. Once we found a base, there was only water there. It had been hit by a shell and everything was taken out. I brought eight eggplants of six liters each. That was all I had. It was not far away, but it was still hard.
What did we eat? Mostly we took some cereal, boiled it in a pot, and that was all we had for the whole day. In the evening, we could drink tea. That was all we ate. We did not cook on the street. The first entrance where the rocket hit was smashed. There was a big hole there. We put a grill down there between the stoves and cooked. It saved us, because it was impossible to stay in the yard: there were mines flying and shooting. We went to collect firewood in the yard and the neighborhood.
“The last shift fought until they ran out of ammunition”
There was a checkpoint near us. Several times, when I went out into the yard, I saw our defenders. Young guys of 20-25 years old. They went in groups, moved in chains and knocked out the Muscovites. At first, they were replaced every three days, while they were being supplied with resources, they fought back. The last shift fought until they ran out of ammunition. Then the guys changed their clothes, hid their weapons somewhere and tried to get out. Some went to our seventh house, and others to the ninth. The people in that house were unfriendly, there were many pro-Russian people. Our fighters were handed over to the Muscovites, they were captured and tortured.
After that, the neighborhood was captured by the occupiers. From the window I saw them drive up in two cars. If I had a grenade launcher at that moment, I would have killed a lot of them. They started cleaning up, checking the apartments. One of them came to our basement and told me: “Open the apartment”. He took me upstairs at gunpoint. He walked around, looked around, and ordered me to hang a white cloth on the door to show that it had already been checked. At first it was Russian troops, and two days later the DPR came in. The Russian army went further, to the center of Mariupol, pressing our defenders against Azovstal. “Azovstal was bombed day and night. The ship was firing from the sea, the land artillery from the land. And the airplanes were bombarded with three-ton bombs, so everything in the apartment was shaking. And Azovstal was seven kilometers away.
“I realized that I could easily be handed over”
When the fighting moved to Azovstal and our neighborhood stopped being shelled, we came out of the basement. My daughter and son-in-law came in. My son-in-law said he would go get the car, and if it started, we would all leave. “Are you coming with us?” – I said that I was not going anywhere. The apartment was broken, the windows and doors were all broken, and we needed to put things in order. Soon after, my son-in-law brought a car, and it turned out that only the glass was broken in one place. They and my wife left, and I was left with the cat.
In early April, the Russian Guard and their police showed up. The neighbors knew that I was against Putin. Back in ’13, I said that Putin and Yanukovych were two c@nts, and both would end up badly. Everyone knew that I was from the Lviv region, which meant I was a “bender”. I realized that I could easily be handed over, and I had to run away before they tied me up. They would throw me in a basement somewhere and I would rot there.
I took a “kravchuchka” with good wheels and put my suitcase in it. I walked two kilometers on the road to Staryi Krym to their checkpoint. There were DPR soldiers at the checkpoint, and buses near the gas station. I started asking the drivers how to get out of here. They explained that every day buses go from here to Nikolske. Then a DPR officer saw me and asked me why I was walking around and snooping. He yelled at me, and I explained that I just wanted to leave.
“The journey from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia took 11 days”
They let me out of Mariupol without any problems, they looked at my passport and that was it. I quickly arrived in Nikolske, but stayed there for six days. There was a situation where if you wanted to go to Russia, there were a lot of volunteers. But they did not take them to Ukraine. One of them picked on me: “Let’s get you on the bus with your things.” At first I thought about going to Rostov, because I saw that it was a problem to get to Zaporizhzhia. Besides, my sister lives near the border with Russia, in the Luhansk region. And then I decided: what the hell difference does it make if it’s the “DPR” here or there? I can’t stand them – I can’t stand them anyway.
And then again, a volunteer came to me to take me to Russia, and I told him: “No, I’m going to Zaporizhzhia”. A young guy heard this and asked: “Are you going to Zaporizhzhia? I want to get there too.” He came to get his mother from Kyiv, but did not find her. Finally, he found himself in the same situation as me. He suggested looking for a private car and trying to get through. Eventually, he found a car and another girl who was supposed to go with us. The driver asked for six thousand hryvnias from each of us, but only until Berdiansk. We decided to go.
We left Nikolske in the direction of Berdiansk, passed six checkpoints, but after Mangush we were stopped. They checked everyone, but still ordered us to go back. We went back to Mangush, but the previous checkpoint did not let us into the city. We had to persuade them not to stay overnight in the field. They finally let us into Mangush, where we spent two more nights. In the end, we decided to return from Mangush to Nikolske and try to go through the village roads. From Ukrainka there was another road to Berdiansk. We were lucky, we didn’t meet a single checkpoint there until we reached Berdiansk. Before the city, we were checked and let through. I stayed in Berdiansk for two days, and then volunteers took me to Zaporizhzhia. In the end, my journey from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia took 11 days.
After Zaporizhzhia, I was going to settle in Kyiv with my niece. But I took a ticket to Lviv just in case. When I got in touch with my niece, it turned out that they had also traveled from Kyiv to Lviv region. So I ended up in my homeland. Our house in Mariupol was not demolished, although the neighboring entrance was destroyed. However, I have no plans to return.