On April 3, the mayor of the city of Chernihiv, besieged by the Russians, stood in front of a television camera in his office.

Vladyslaw Atroshenko seemed annoyed and said he and his fellow citizens were fed up with these questions from journalists.

“Because our city is 70 percent destroyed.

People are no longer interested in how many mines hit the city, whether 20 or 30. Journalists keep asking: how often was it shelled and with what effects?

The effects are very bad, like in Bucha and Kharkiv and maybe like in Mariupol.

The most urgent question of Chernihiv residents is about tomorrow.”

Gerhard Gnauck

Political correspondent for Poland, Ukraine, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania based in Warsaw.

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A few days earlier, despite some connection problems, Atroshenko had been able to speak to local politicians in other parts of Europe.

The Council of Europe had organized a video conference for Ukrainian municipalities and their partner cities - for Chernihiv it is Memmingen.

Atroschenko described how Russian warplanes repeatedly flew over the city during the day and dropped bombs at low altitude.

“The pilots can read the signs on the shops and the writing on the houses.

They throw bombs at residential buildings.” This is not an army-against-army battle, “here the fire is aimed at the civilian population”.

That would be a “genocide”. “But we will not leave here.

We will stay and support the soldiers with everything we can.

And I'm sure we will win."

Huge craters in the ground

Meanwhile, tomorrow, the future, has actually begun for Chernihiv.

Russian shelling ended on April 3rd.

On that day, the mayor himself wasn't quite sure what to make of the sudden silence in the city - and how many houses were just a pile of stones, broken glass and concrete.

In any case, Moscow politicians had announced that their army's "activity" in northern Ukraine would be "reduced".

More happened: the Russians, who for a month had almost surrounded Chernihiv and shelled it day after day, withdrew.

What is left of this beautiful city?

Is she just a pile of rubble and ash?

A visit to Chernihiv shows that the magnificent churches in the center and also the "College", one of the first educational institutions in the region, are still standing and are almost undamaged.

But the downtown area took a hit.

Aerial bombs apparently punched a huge hole through many rooms in the "Hotel Ukraina".

Not far from there, at a magnificent cinema building from 1939, which last housed the district youth center, only the outer walls and columns are left.

A Russian missile hit the heart of the building;

in the largest hall there is now a huge crater in the floor.

In the rooms around it, women are sweeping up rubble and dust, young people are dragging out charred beams.

DVDs and books lying around;

where there is still a ceiling, rainwater drips through.

A billboard reads,

that at Christmas time Tchaikovsky's "Nutcracker" was in the film program.

No more music will sound here any time soon, neither Russian nor otherwise.

If you continue to roam the city, you will discover more small craters in the ground or burnt-out apartments in apartment blocks.

Local public transport is suspended;

a large part of the fleet is destroyed, the windows of many buses are broken or the tank is punctured.

Fuel is rationed and of course much more expensive than before the war.

As a result, many in the city now ride bicycles.