Targeted by the Russian military to compel the populations to support them, the elected representatives of cities like Makariv, Borodianka or Bantha resisted. Some have lost their lives.
by
The lattices of armed men settle with the naive and colorful decoration of the Makariv Children and Youth Center. The administration of this small city ravaged city has settled in this building since the town hall was destroyed by the Russian soldiers. In a classroom, the mayor assures never considering leaving his post despite continuous bombing from February 28 at the end of March. “I had to stay there to show the guys of the Territorial Defense that we had to fight”, assures Vadym Tokar, 38 years old, calm and massive.
The town of the municipality located about fifty kilometers from kyiv represented a privileged target for Kremlin’s forces. His head, he assured, was priced at. On the screen of his phone, he shows a message sent by the Russian command advising him to think of his citizens and his family and not to “lead [his city] to the humanitarian catastrophe”. The message concluded by this warning: “Do not let nationalists hide behind you!” The man did not let himself disassemble. After desired to her anonymous correspondent to cross the same “tragedy” that the Ukrainian nation, he wrote: “You do not understand our language, so I will translate [in russian], but in brief: going to make you fuck, fascist Russian. “
In Makariv, the Russian offensive began on February 28th. According to the mayor, 14,000 inhabitants managed to flee over the 15,000 of the municipality. Then, after the withdrawal of the forces of the Kremlin, at the end of March, “132” corpses of civilians were discovered. In the kyiv region, the Ukrainian authorities are decompetent for more than 1,000 civilians killed. On his cell phone, Vadym Tokar unveils the photo of a man lying along his bike, then a video extracted from a surveillance camera, dated February 28, which shows a Russian tank repeatedly on a car. Inside, was the Maystrenko couple, 72 and 68 years old.
“Can not stay”
For him, the Russians target mayors for “propaganda” purposes. “They try to capture them in order to force them to support the Russian world, hoping that the people follow.” The resistance of some would have cost them life. The bodies of Olha Soukhenko, Chefe from the nearby village of Motyjyn, his sons and her husband, were found in a pit dug in a pine forest on April 5th. Vadym Tokar explains that the woman, disappeared on March 24, “communicated to the Ukrainian army the positions of the Russian forces”. IOURI PRYLYPKO, the mayor of Hostomel, strategic city not far from kyiv, attacked from the first day of the invasion, he was killed on March 7th.
You have 62.86% of this article to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.