Foreign media are reporting less and less about Ukraine. Over the years of Russia’s colonial war here, the world seems to have got used to its atrocities. However, the aggression is ongoing, and millions of people have to literally survive every day – if not under Russian occupation, then under Russian bombs. In the first months of the full-scale war, the village of Chornobayivka in the Kherson region became world famous –the Ukrainians repeatedly destroyed enemy troops and equipment there. But despite such a formidable fame, the locals are ordinary flesh- and-blood people whom the occupiers have not left alone even after this part of the Kherson region was liberated. Read the story of a family that, in spite of mortal danger, stays at home and believes in the victory of freedom and truth over tyranny and lies.
The full-scale war caught the Kononenko family — Iryna, 66, and Oleksandr, 68 — in their home village of Chornobayivka, a suburb of Kherson. Like millions of Ukrainians, on February 24, a big explosion nearby woke the woman up at dawn. The huge shockwave made the doors of the garage and the house slam open. Iryna was so scared that she felt a pang in her chest. However, there was no one to calm her down –her husband had been hospitalized a few days before, and her adult children lived separately. She ran outside in a jacket over her nightgown. Black thick smoke billowed over the airport on the edge of Chornobayivka. It became extremely alarming. Neighbors said in a low voice: “The war has begun.”
The Kherson region immediately felt what it was like. The road that divides Chornobayivka into two parts roared with the Russian heavy military vehicles. Columns of enemy tanks, armored personnel carriers and trucks were endless. They were roaring day and night… Some heavy vehicles entered the airport, and the rest went on towards Mykolayiv.
Oleksandr did not have time to have his heart treated. Like other patients in the hospital, he returned home without any hope for medical care.
The next day, February 25, intense explosions began. All the windows in the Kononenkos’ house were blown out along with the frames in the middle of the night. The electricity went out at once. The blow was so strong that the spouses thought the house was falling down. It was a windy night, and without windows, the house immediately became cold.
The day began with searching for a plastic sheet to cover the holes. Oleksandr remembered the old wooden windows that had before the repair. They installed them. Then they began preparing the basement to stay there during shelling. Although it was cramped, cold and damp, it became an escape for them, their friends and neighbors from almost daily shelling for the entire period of the war.
Chornobayivka became world famous. The Russians brought military equipment to the airport from the left bank of the Dnipro, and the Ukrainian military destroyed it together with the occupiers almost thirty times, or maybe even more. Someone from Chornobayivka informed the Ukrainian military when equipment and ammunition arrived. And there was an awful lot of that “good stuff” there. So the Ukrainians hit there all the time. When all that stuff detonated, black “mushrooms” rose above the village. Everything roared, whistled, squealed, signal rockets flew out in different colors.
“It went on for hours and hours on end – that’s how many weapons the Russians brought here to kill us… could barely survive that time in the basement,” the Kononenkos say.
In the early days, villagers heard shots somewhere in the steppes and near the airport. Enemy vehicles were moving to Kherson and back. Then they occupied a farm and put their air defense system there. They dug in.Something was shooting every day. Perhaps the Russians had some training. They did not care about Chornobayivka – they aimed at Mykolayiv. And later, when our military began to beat them here, they organized provocations – they launched missiles from the airport into the village – straight up. And then they began shooting them down over the houses. The heads of these missiles – “Grads” – fell into people’s yards and houses. One fell on the Kononenkos’ neighbor’s house, other neighbors were also hit. Oleksandr and Iryna couldn’t see where the missiles were shot down, as they had to rush for cover. Once Iryna ducked into the basement, the husband was further away, in the yard, so he had to run from the gate to the garage. When he got to the garage, he realized that there was a car filled with gas. He ran up and closed the gate to stop the debris from hitting it at least a little. As soon as he managed to run away, a second later a cluster missile hit the place and began to explode. The man fell to the ground, and the missile elements flew in all directions. In each cartridge, a bunch of small balls exploded with incredible speed and force. First, it exploded above their house, then started exploding in the neighbors’ garden, then down the street. It was scary to watch it hit the neighbors’ roofs and break through ceilings and walls.
Miraculously, the man was not injured. Iryna was almost deaf in one ear. When the shelling ended, a neighbor shouted: “Help, my house is ruined!” The Kononenkos ran out into the street and heard another neighbor screaming: “The pipe is broken, gas is leaking!” Oleksandr immediately went to the garage, grabbed the tools and ran to the neighbor’s house to turn off the gas valve. He was in time.
The Kononenkos’ house was also damaged by the shelling: the roof was cut by shrapnel and turned into a sieve. The side of the roof was seriously damaged –there was almost nothing left of it. Oleksandr barely had time to patch the hole with a piece of old linoleum when a downpour began.
Once, the man saw a missile explode. Dangerously close, almost over his head. And he stopped and couldn’t move. It was as if some psychological factor was triggered: he wanted to run, to hide, but his legs were stuck. He needed tremendous force to get them off the ground.
The Russians repeatedly fired at Chornobayivka. They still do it. Regularly. It’s very hard to endure, because there is hardly any repose, especially at night. “You don’t know what to do – to sleep or not, because as soon as it gets dark, the shelling starts. It’s close, loud, and scary. We’ve forgotten what a nightgown and pajamas are, because we sleep dressed so that at any time we can quickly jump out into the basement. When you try to get some rest in the daytime, they start shooting anytime,” says Iryna.
Since the war began, the Kononenkos’ neighbors have been visiting them for the night. Some were afraid to stay in their homes, while others had their houses destroyed or seriously damaged. Not everyone had basements suitable for shelter. Both pensioners and a young woman with a schoolgirl came. The child kept screaming, was very afraid of explosions, and could hardly be calmed down.
The Russians actively dug in on the outskirts of Chornobayivka. They also set up a crematorium there. For some time, the smell of burning human bodies drifted almost every day. The locals said that they burned their people’s corpses so as not to take them home. And maybe our compatriots’ too, because people went missing and not everyone has been found yet.
At first, Iryna and Oleksandr were especially afraid to go out – they never knew how a simple trip to the store to buy bread would end. They were also afraid of being seen by Russian barbarians. “I know people who died just because they were walking down the street, even if it wasn’t curfew. Going out during the curfew, which began at 5:00 p.m., was a sure death. A guy decided to walk his dog in the evening and was shot dead right outside his house. You can’t understand what goes on in the minds of Russian soldiers. In general, the Russians in Chornobayivka seemed to be calm, but in the evening it was impossible to go out – they would get drunk, walk the streets and shoot at fences,” adds Iryna.Once she was walking down the street, in a hurry, and an enemy tank pointed its muzzle at her. The woman asked if she could pass. A young Buryat said: “Yes, you may, we are protecting you.” She went on to get some bread, trying to calm down. Another time she worked outside. She barely had time to hide from the shelling. A moment later, a bullet flew past her – very close. She was only frightened. One day she was getting ready for work when she heard a missile flying, hissing, and debris already falling on the roof. Then it hit the local market, a shopkeeper and some customers were affected, nine people were injured. Another time, it happened in a neighboring street – houses were damaged, a young woman’s arm and leg were torn off. And this happens almost daily…
In the winter of 2023, in the very center of the village, Iryna came under heavy fire. Three times. It was raining. “It was pounding so hard that spruce branches were flying. I and other passers-by fell on the wet, dirty asphalt, pressed into the ground. It flew above us and near us so close that we were already saying goodbye to life. Then we got up and ran, and it exploded again, and we fell into puddles again… We were shaking and staggering from what we were going through, and we had no strength to get up and run on. It was a miracle that no one was injured or killed. Many civilians were injured during such shelling. A missile fell on a house killing a man in his bed, and his wife was somewhere else, so she survived. Another young man went outside to smoke and was killed on the spot. Yet another hid in the bathroom and was hit there. I don’t know, there are probably more than two hundred damaged houses in the village. Some are completely ruined, some burned down, some badly damaged – their roofs and walls must be changed… Our house was not spared either. The roof was burnt out. We could barely put out the fire. So now we have to replace not only the roofing, but the entire structure, which barely holds together. When it’s windy, we pray that it won’t be blown away…” the woman can hardly hold back her tears.
Of course, living under occupation was difficult not only because of the ever-present danger, but also because of the humanitarian crisis. “From the very first days of the war, a lot of Russian soldiers appeared in the village. They drove around in tanks, robbed grocery stores, smashed up the ATB supermarket and spent a week taking all the food out of there. Actually, they robbed everything like hell. They also ransacked private homes. They weren’t ashamed of anything, didn’t shy away from anything,” say the Kononenkos. There was only one shop in the village where you could buy bread. The queues there were so long that you had to stand for half a day to get something. You could get no more than two loaves of bread per person and you need yeast to bake yourself. But there was nowhere to buy it either.
Prices for all food and household goods increased sharply, many things simply disappeared from the shelves. At first, you could pay by card and cash, while the Internet was available, and then only in cash. The occupiers began to introduce Russian rubles, issue Russian passports and encourage people to receive pensions in rubles. The Kononenkos refused flatly. But then, like most people, they were driven into a dead end: they ran out of Ukrainian money, had no cash, and ATMs didn’t work, so they had to agree to receive a Russian pension. Young people had no money at all, and could live off pensioners, if there were any in their family.
During the whole summer under the occupation, Iryna canned vegetables, fruits, and berries that she grew in the garden or was able to buy. The couple tried to make at least some supplies, because they didn’t understand how long they would have to live under the muzzles of Russian tanks, whether would have money to buy food, and whether there would be any food. Ukrainian humanitarian aid did not arrive because the Russians obstructed it. Instead, the occupiers began to give their humanitarian aid. The people of Chornobayivka showed their character here too. When Iryna stood in line at the store to buy bread, the Russians brought buckwheat and oil, and began inviting people. But no one approached. Then they unloaded their goods on the ground and left. And the villagers emptied the buckwheat out of sacks, poured oil on it and set it on fire. Everyone stood silently and watched the Russian gifts burn.
In autumn, the occupiers held a so-called referendum on the accession of the Kherson region to Russia. Armed soldiers collected people’s signatures in their homes. It meant that people in Chornobayivka had to express their “independent position” at gunpoint. It was really scary. “But my husband and I said clearly: “against.” We waited with bated breath: what will be the reaction of our uninvited guests? They looked at us intensely, wrote down our names on a separate list and left angrily. For several days we lived in anticipation of a problem, that they would return and take us to their torture chamber. Fortunately, it did not happen. But they came with searches for another reason – they wanted our daughter. Of course, no one explained why. When they didn’t find her (she didn’t live with us), they threatened to get her wherever she was. Oh, we were so worried then…” Iryna recalls.
The family has been in danger because of the war for three years now. But they don’t want to leave: their home, household, elderly parents and friends, as well as their jobs are here. They keep living in their house cut up by debris sticking out of the walls of the house, and the bullets went through the gate… The fighting never stops.
On November 11, 2022, Ukrainians regained Kherson. Battles raged in the nearby Kyselivka. The Russians understood that Ukraine was advancing, and began to leave. People in Chornobayivka learned about the de-occupation when they heard the national anthem of Ukraine playing. They immediately ran outside, began to cry, picked flowers that were blooming in the gardens at that time, ran, carried food, tea, canned food, hugged, thanked, and everyone was sobbing, both men and women…
De-occupation brought relief, and people could relax. However, the difficulties did not end there. The Russians destroyed communications. As soon as utilities were repaired, the invaders would cut them off again. “We had no electricity and no water for two months, and there were problems with phone service. We used to go to the village council to recharge our phones, call our families, and get water. But the worst thing was the shelling of Kherson and Chornobayivka, which the Russians now conducted from the left bank of the Dnipro. What cynicism – when they entered Kherson, they said we were their brothers, they were there to “protect us”, but when they lost the city, they began to mercilessly destroy it and us along with it. Daily! And not only with Grads and mortars, but also with banned phosphorus bombs that set everything on fire,” Oleksandr Kononenko explains.
It is impossible to relax. Like other villagers, Iryna and Oleksandr wake up early in the morning and do not know what the day will be like. There is neither sleep nor peace. “During this time in the occupation and under fire after it, we’ve aged ten years. We’ve cried and went through so much that we’ve never seen anything like this in our whole life…” we hear from Iryna.
However, the woman wipes her tears and goes back to weaving camouflage nets again. For more than six months, she’s been baking 200 pies a day to give to Ukrainian soldiers. She prays, helps others, like her husband, and believes that we will be able to drive this insidious and cruel enemy from our land.
Author: Oleksandra Radova
*All photos are provided by the author.
Supported by the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. The views of the authors do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Government.