There is always a lot of work to do in the Ukrainian territories liberated from the Russians. Apart from rebuilding the damaged infrastructure, public services have to be launched practically from scratch, as a huge number of documents and databases were destroyed during the hostilities. Local governments work at the edge of their capabilities to help Ukrainians restore their documents. Today’s article from the Kherson region tells how Ukrainian law returns to the de-occupied territories.
The hottest times in Bila Krynytsia and the surrounding villages of the Velyka Oleksandrivka community, the Kherson region, were during the first days of the occupation and a bit later, when the Russians were driven back to the Inhulets River. Then the invaders razed everything they could to the ground. And of about two thousand residents of the Bila Krynytsia starostat, which comprises six villages, no more than three hundred people remained under occupation.
On March 9, 2022, the orcs, as the locals call the Russian invaders, went to Velyka Oleksandrivka, and on March 10 they entered Bila Krynytsia from the direction of Davydiv Brid.
“The orcs spent the night here, opened all the shops, looted them, left people with nothing and moved on to Kochubeyivka. For a long time after that, there were no Russians; they were based in the Kochubeyivka community. And only after our guys drove them back to the Inhulets, the villages of our starostat came under constant fire again. When the Russians saw our elevator, they thought it was a town and wanted to capture it. But thanks to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, they were driven away,” recalls Anastasia Kovana, acting starosta of the Bila Krynytsia starostat, head of the Administrative Services Center in the Velyka Oleksandrivka community.
The occupiers left the surrounding villages to their fate. They did not even appoint a gauleiter (head of the local occupation administration) or start the school year on September 1, 2022 in Bila Krynytsia, as well as throughout the Kherson region. Maybe they didn’t want to, or they had no time for that… However, Russian soldiers broke into the village head’s house, came to his office, locked him in for a while, and then let him go. Shortly after that, he resigned.
Since the vast majority of locals left the occupation, and the Russian invaders showed little interest in Bila Krynytsia, there were no people willing to cooperate with them. Anastasia Kovana says that after the liberation, Ukrainian law enforcement officers thoroughly checked the locals for possible cooperation with the enemy, but they never found a single collaborator in Bila Krynytsia.
Anastasia herself had been away from home for eight months and returned shortly after
Bila Krynytsia and Velyka Oleksandrivka were liberated on October 4, 2022. They started with on-site visits of the Administrative Services Center and representatives of the village council, asking what people needed most. And from December 1, 2022, shortly after the entire right-bank part of the Kherson region, including the whole Beryslav district, was liberated, local authorities were able to return home on a permanent basis and gradually resumed the work of all the most necessary services.
Along with Anastasia, all the ASC staff returned to their jobs. Their workload increased after the liberation: administrators had to restore access to old registers and introduce new requested services, primarily for IDPs. That wasn’t surprising: after its liberation, the Velyka Oleksandrivka community sheltered many people from more dangerous and still occupied parts of the Kherson region.
In the first months, the registries functioned poorly, the flow of people and the workload on each administrator were enormous, and they had to spend a lot of time on each request. It didn’t depend on the work of a particular ASC; such problems were common across the country at that time. However, the Velyka Oleksandrivka community coped with its challenges.
“The ASC was the very first institution to resume its work in the community. Over time, we managed to overcome the crisis, improved access to the registers, and entered a large number of documents related to real estate registration.
This allowed the commission on damaged property to work. We were among the first communities to meet people’s needs under the eRestoration program,” says Anastasia Kovana.
People started returning home to Bila Krynytsia and the surrounding villages right after the liberation. Later, the number of such people increased. The houses in the villages of Bilousove and Pervomaiske suffered the most from the Russian occupiers, and there are damaged houses in Karierne and Bila Krynytsia too. Locals recall that if one street was hit, damage was found in almost every yard later.
Shortly after the right-bank part of the region was liberated, people began restoring their houses. Those who had all their documents in order immediately formalized everything and received compensation from the state. Some people didn’t wait for help and did everything on their own. Charitable organizations also helped and continue helping many people.
“Some people have houses damaged from 10% to 40%, and others from 40 to 100%. We conduct surveys and there is no case when a village or a street is forgotten. There is an organization that helps with recovery, and its representatives continue to work for us. So even those people who for some reason haven’t returned home yet can count on support. However, this organization has a condition: after the houses are restored, people must live there,” says Anastasia Kovana.
In the Velyka Oleksandrivka community, the occupiers completely destroyed the village of Bilohirka, and there was a lot of destruction in the neighboring Davydiv Brid. Reconstruction is also underway here, and some people with fully destroyed houses, who managed to formalize all their papers, have already received certificates for purchasing new homes.
Anastasia Kovana says that many people from Davydiv Brid and the neighboring villages keep coming to the ASC, and some of them are still formalizing the documents that were destroyed along with their houses. Many people apply to register their IDP status, obtain an extract of the state land cadastre, place of registration, and re-register their inheritance.
The local ASC provides services not only to members of the Velyka Oleksandrivka community, but also all the neighboring ones – Beryslav, Borozenske, Vysokopillia, Kalynivske. Anastasia also notes that some administrative services can be provided only to members of their community, for example, registration of a place of residence or social services. Therefore, full access to public services, as well as returning to a quiet life is out of the question until the victory of Ukraine.
Author: Oleh Baturin
All photos courtesy of 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.