‘Bukvy’ continues documenting Russian war crimes and stories of civilian deaths in Mariupol and other Ukrainian territories. These are the stories from ‘Museum of Civilian Voices’ established by the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation.

 

Anastasia Savelieva

‘Nothing left from the husband – it was a direct strike’

On the eve of the full-scale invasion, Anastasia Savelieva was preparing to open her own nail salon. Until the last, they did not believe that everything that was happening was serious and lasting. Already in the first days of the full-scale aggression, the Russian military deliberately bombed electricity transformers and gas supply pipes in order to leave the population without any means of normal existence. According to Anastasia, the air temperature in their apartment reached a minimum.

‘On March 2, we decided to leave. It was scary to evacuate, because there were no humanitarian corridors. Columns of civilians along the Mariupol-Zaporizhzhia highway were heavily shelled. But every day the fighting only intensified, getting closer and closer to us. The city was surrounded. On March 2, we had to evacuate early in the morning, the projectiles were already hitting neighboring houses.’

That morning, Anastasia’s husband was almost killed by Russian artillery fire; he was saved thanks to the fence. On March 2, the family reached the center of the city, stopped at the shelter of one of the churches to say goodbye to relatives and friends. They dissuaded Anastasia and her husband to leave Mariupol because it was dangerous.

Civilians were sleeping in the bomb shelter of the church on mattresses, the basement was overcrowded. As Anastasia tells, they had to cook in the open fire in the yard.

On March 6, two bombs exploded near the church.

On March 9, the men went to the Eastern district to find food and get fuel for the generator. The car was overtaken by mortar fire. Everyone died instantly on the spot: Anastasia’s husband, his brother, a close friend of the family and the driver.

‘In ordinary life, when a person dies, you have a day or two to prepare the funeral, to live with that thought. And our men were brought to us half an hour after the death, they said that we should bury them… They were completely burned. We identified their bodies because the driver was thrown 10 meters from the car. Almost nothing was left of my husband, it was a direct strike.’

On March 16, Anastasia and children managed to evacuate to Zaporizhzhia. Now they are in the Netherlands.

 

Serhii Vahanov

‘It is an incredible feeling that we have escaped from captivity and can live’

Serhii is a 63-year-old pensioner and photojournalist. He worked in Donetsk and Mariupol.

‘For 8 years, Mariupol lived next to the war. We heard the artillery. We believed that this was another escalation. But the signs of civilization gradually disappeared: light, Internet, gas, water, communication.’

Serhii has a severe form of bronchial asthma. The man shares that he survived then only thanks to his friend, who helped at the volunteer center and delivered vital medicines.

In addition to artillery shelling, the occupiers destroyed the city’s infrastructure and the lives of civilians with brutal mass air raids. As Serhii notes, it was physically very difficult at his age to run to the shelter all the time.

On March 14, their friend took Serhii and his wife to Berdyansk. Now they live in Uzhhorod.

 

Valentyna Churikova

‘They knocked on our door and took my husband to the filtration camp’

Valentina learned about the beginning of a full-scale war on the morning of February 24 from her policeman husband.

Valentina says that the people of Mariupol felt the real war already at the beginning of March, when the food and communication crisis overtook the city. Until March 2, the couple even went to work.

‘March 30 was the most terrible day in terms of shelling. The Russians knew about all positions of the Ukrainian military. If we heard the drones, then we knew the occupiers were spying the positions of our defenders, at which they would shoot.’

Later the family moved to a small shelter that housed 200 locals. In April, her husband was taken to the Russian filtration camp because he was a policeman. He spent there more than a month.

The family then managed to evacuate to the Ukraine-controlled territory. Now they live in Chernihiv.