War in Ukraine "Russia means the destruction of your house and the death of your children"
War in Ukraine Ukraine launches guerrilla war against Russia
During the siege of the Syrian neighborhood of Bab Amr, the Bashar Asad regime's artillery followed a strict schedule for the start and end of their bombardments.
They started at six and ended 12 hours later.
The rhythm of the Russian guns and missiles that harass the Ukrainian city of Kharkov works in reverse.
As Denis Korvatub explains, "
our soldiers say that the Russians have dinner at 7 and at 8 they fire a couple of shells
. It's their way of saying hello, we're here! From that time they start firing shells all night ".
The young volunteer expresses himself in a central and charming cafe in the second Ukrainian town that would not be out of place in the best capitals of Europe.
He's not the only one.
A few days ago Gatos y Café announced its reopening.
"The place for merry people and cats," reads a huge graffiti that adorns the joint, filled with royal pets.
The activity of these two establishments is at least unique in a city like Kharkov, subjected to incessant punishment by the Russian army, which has claimed dozens of fatalities since the start of the war.
But history reminds us that even metropolises that suffered similar situations for years, such as Sarajevo or Beirut, tried to forget the tragedy in which they had plunged by opening cafes and restaurants, albeit at intervals, "to recover life", as Denis points out.
"We don't want to accept donations. We have to support the economy, we need to recover," Anastasia Pecko, owner of Gatos y Café, told local media.
The businesswoman added that the purpose of reopening the place is also to take care of the 18 kittens that she has gathered at the premises, including one that she will call Javelin and another that will be nicknamed Bayraktar, in tribute to the Turkish anti-tank missile and drone that are so good services have rendered to the Ukrainian military.
The effort to maintain a certain normality is a difficult effort
to maintain when Moscow seems determined to intensify the punishment suffered by large Ukrainian populations such as Kharkov, where more than 560 people have died since the beginning of the Russian invasion in February, according to figures. run by the local police.
The Russian military is working with systematic determination to blast apart the face of Kharkiv, which is showing more and more traces of destruction, especially in its northern and eastern districts.
During the day, another large factory was destroyed by fire caused by an artillery shell in the nearby village of Korotych, 20 kilometers from the city.
The armed forces loyal to Vladimir Putin extended their actions to the southern port of Odessa, which was attacked by several long-range missiles launched by bombers from the Caspian Sea.
Two of them hit a military installation but another two partially destroyed an apartment building killing 6 people, including a 3-month-old baby, reported the authorities of that village, who anticipated that the list of victims would increase predictably when the rescue is complete.
The videos from that metropolis made it possible to see the enormous column of smoke that came out of the 16-story building that was hit.
"The only objective of the Russian missiles against Odessa is terror
," said the Ukrainian Foreign Minister, Dmytro Kouleba, in a tweet in which he also called for "a wall to be built between civilization and the barbarians who attack peaceful villages with missiles".
Several Moscow spokesmen announced on Friday that their forces intend to extend their offensive to the entire southeastern Ukraine to control a continuous strip of territory that extends from Donbas and the outskirts of Kharkov, to the Odessa region, and connect in this way with the Moldovan separatist region of Transnistria.
According to kyiv, after the debacle they suffered with the sinking of their flagship, the Moskva, the Russians have reinforced their naval presence in the Black Sea with four submarines equipped with long-range missiles that they could use to attack Odesa and the region of the around.
"They literally bomb everything, all the time, 24 hours a day
," warned the governor of the Lugansk region in Donbas, Sergiy Gaidai, who admitted the death of two other people in the village of Zolote.
The fury with which the Russian artillery has been used against Kharkov for many days is perhaps explained by the fact that the Ukrainian soldiers are advancing from this town to the east in the midst of "fierce fighting", as reported by the governor of the area, Oleg Synegoubov .
The Ukrainian counteroffensive aims to distract the Russians from their attack on nearby Donbas, where they continue to advance, albeit very slowly, towards Sloviansk and Kramatorsk.
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