An alert has just sounded on the telephones and in the city.
But it doesn't really seem to disrupt everyday life in Chernihiv on this gray February afternoon.
Two years ago, on February 24, 2022, it was in the early morning that the sirens woke up the approximately 300,000 residents of this municipality located 130 km north of kyiv.
“I thought it was an exercise when I woke up,” recalls Viktoria, a language teacher, “but we quickly understood what was happening because relatives sent me a video of Russian troops who had just crossed the border"
.
These soldiers had been massed for months in Belarus and Russia, whose borders are less than 100 km from the large city in northern Ukraine.
“No one wanted to believe it and no one was prepared to wake up to war
,
” recalls Kateryna
,
head of the city's cultural services.
Russian tanks pass through the villages quickly before approaching Chernihiv.
The city is just two hours from the Ukrainian capital via highway, a strategic objective for advancing troops and the huge column of tanks and equipment towards kyiv.
But Russian troops encountered strong resistance at the entrance to the city, where Ukrainian forces were deployed.
Then begins a siege which will last 40 days.
Long weeks marked by indiscriminate bombings on civilian buildings, buildings, houses.
Chernihiv held on, but after the departure of Russian troops towards Donbass, the city counted its dead: hundreds of civilians were killed by strikes or the lack of care and medicine.
See alsoIn Chernihiv, humanitarian convoys to help residents
Documenting Russian Crimes
Kateryna wanted to document and tell the story of this “terrible month of February” and the weeks that followed.
With her team, she went to meet the inhabitants of the occupied villages to collect their history, the accounts of the abuses and humiliations inflicted by Russian soldiers.
The testimonies also speak of a solidarity that has developed between neighbors.
“All of these people said they were relieved to have been able to tell their story.”
The goal today is to have them translated and published in English.
“This is our powerful weapon against Russian propaganda,” she emphasizes.
During the siege of Chernihiv, the dead were buried on the edge of the city's old cemetery © Yves Bellanger
The ancient cemetery of Chernihiv has become a memorial to all the victims of the siege.
Long paths of ice and mud lead to a wood on the edge.
This is where the dead were buried, due to lack of access to the new municipal cemetery which was regularly targeted.
Among the graves, sometimes simple crosses, tombstones were added after the siege.
All these lives stopped between March and April 2022.
The Reckoning Project is a collective of Ukrainian and international journalists and researchers gathering evidence of Russian war crimes.
Vira is one of them.
The young journalist went to interview the survivors of strikes which targeted a residential neighborhood on March 3, 2022 in the city.
“There were no barracks or military infrastructure there, just civilians
. ”
That day, 47 people were killed.
Meticulous work was undertaken to collect these testimonies and put together a future indictment file before the courts.
"We didn't know that it was so complicated to prove war crimes. After the siege, we realized the importance of noting everything down to the smallest detail
."
A new house with a shelter in the cellar
Tens of thousands of people left Chernihiv after the Russian invasion began.
Many have not returned but displaced people from the Donetsk or Bakhmout region have settled here.
Today, the urgency is still for reconstruction.
The Bobrovytsia district, located
in the suburbs,
is the one who suffered the most damage.
Many wooden houses, hit by Russian shells, were reduced to ashes during the siege.
See also Residents of Chernihiv return home after the bombings
With the Bo Mozhemo association ("Because we can"), Andriy, an electrician, is mobilizing all the goodwill to repair roofs and rebuild new houses for these families who have lost everything.
“We need building materials and tools much more than clothes or food
,
” he says.
With his association “Bo mozhemo”, Andriy restores and rebuilds houses destroyed during the siege of Chernihiv © Valentyna Naumenko
It is mainly donations that make it possible to finance these reconstruction projects like that of Eugenia.
The young woman lives with her husband and daughter in small temporary accommodation after their house was destroyed by a Russian strike.
She insisted on returning to the scene after the siege.
“There is a lot of solidarity around this project and seeing our house take shape, morale has returned over the weeks.”
On the construction site, Eugenia's face lights up when she already talks about the layout of the future living room.
She also wants to install an independent shelter in the cellar.
After the end of the siege, the city of Chernihiv was spared from attacks for a long time.
But on August 19, 2023, a Russian missile killed seven people in the city center.
The roof of the municipal theater was destroyed.
The windows of surrounding businesses exploded.
It was an ordinary Saturday with lots of people in the streets.
A new painful mourning for the city.
Everyone has learned to live with this threat.
In recent months, defense lines have been further strengthened near the borders of Russia and Belarus.
Trenches were dug and fortifications erected.
Everyone is aware that the war will still be long, and that the danger is still present.
But initiatives abound for reconstruction, as does a need to envisage life after.
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