Thread by @dpatrikarakos

I came to Kharkiv (& the villages beyond) to report for @unhered. On the northeastern front Russian guns were firing from 2 sides, while Russia itself is just over 20km away. Out here you really understand the scale of #Russia's 🇷🇺 war on #Ukraine 🇺🇦. THREAD

"We call #Kharkiv the city of broken windows" says @NatalieZubar who documents #Russia war crimes in the city. Bomb damage is everywhere throughout the city. And when buildings haven't been directly hit, shockwaves from the bombs have smashed windows of the surrounding buildings.

#Russia started bombing Kharkiv really hard in the first days of the war. Planes to pound the city. It was terrifying. As well as damage they sought to use what @NatalieZubar calls "acoustic terror" - to drive people out because of the relentless thunder of their bombing.

Nataliya believes #Russia troops (who supposedly entered Kharkiv in the early days of the war targeted her office as it was a EUroMaidan centre. She didn't believe it as first but it happened twice. Here you can how they sprayed bullets into the wall. Then it was shelled.

As with all the various frontlines I have seen the overwhelming damage is to civilian buildings and target. "Their bombing is not very precise...to say the least," says Natalka.

More worryingly, there is a clear pattern of targeting emergency services: fire and ambulance services in particular have been hit. Here you can see the destroyed vehicle amid the ruins of a totally bombed out emergency services facility.

More than this the sheer size of the ordinance #russia has used on the city is striking. The bomb craters here are huge. "I saw very large bomb craters on Mykolaiv," I tell Natalka. "Ours are bigger!" she snaps back. She's not wrong.

I ask @NatalieZubar how long she thinks war will last. "We're 40km from the Russian border," she says. "This will not stop until #Russia is demilitarized."
"Well that's not going to happen surely," I reply.
"there are a lot of people here in #ukraine who want o give it a try."

@unherd

#Russia dropped a huge bomb right on the administration building in central #Kharkiv. Here, attacks have been threefold: 1. Emergency services. 2. Administration buildings. 3. Comms - esp. wifi & electricity.

The ruins are full of pots and pans and cooking utensils. There is nothing military here. In this photo am holding the remnants of what was once a small pot for boiling coffee.

Photo credit for his whole thread: @jm_stout

Nearby in central Kharkiv a poster of Putin and Lukashenko."Fucking butchers" says Nataliya's colleague, Oleksiy. Nearby, a #Russia missile (brought from Kramatorsk i'm told) is embedded into the ground. "Shame on Nazi Russia," it reads.

"just look at it - it's everywhere," says Natalka taking me to yet another bombed civilian building. These bastards will never stop unless we stop them. And we will."

I want to go out to the frontlines beyond central Kharkiv. On our way we pass through a village named after former USSR President Nikita Khrushchev.
"Ah, Khrushchev," I say. "He was Ukrainian."
"He was very big asshole," Oleksiy replies.

We pass through checkpoints. @NatalieZubar puts on her wrist compass - we will need this because we will need to stay out of the direction of the shelling.

We arrive in #Saltivka. "Ah, welcome to hell, says Nataliya. I can't hide my horror as I am told details of the total destruction of this residential areas on the northeastern frontlines. Here, Russians are shelling from two sides & #Russia itself is only just over 20km away.

#Saltivka is one of the largest residential areas in Europe & #Russia 🇷🇺 has almost totally destroyed it. The violence Moscow has wrought here - & across everywhere I've been in #ukraine 🇺🇦 - is indiscriminate & incontinent.

I'd say 90% of the buildings in #ukraine 🇺🇦 I've seen bombed by #Russia 🇷🇺 have been like this one: Residential apartment blocks with no military targets nearby. Here smoke still billows from an apartment building just shelled.

Around us the sound shelling is frequent.

One feature of bombed out ruins on the frontlines is, amazingly, cats. Unlike dogs, which are too nervous, cats don't mind the sound of shelling. "You never see a thin cat in a warzone says @NatalieZubar

As we move through the from here we have to watch how we move as the sound of shelling tumbles through the sky. The shelling is coming mostly from the north so we use buildings that shield us from that direction as cover. All around us chaos.

Here, as with most places, the local make it very clear what they think about #Russia. Putin khuylo! ("Putin is a dickhead") is common phrase in #Ukraine and is scrawled onto various surfaces around the front here.

I meet oe of the few people who hasn't fled - a old man who doesn't want to appear on camera. "Why would I flee? This is my home. I'm 75-years old. I've had my life. I don't fear anything anymore."

Another man, equally reluctant to appear on camera, tells me. "I'd rather die here in my home than go somewhere else and die an alien."

We met this lady who refuses to leave. She spends almost her life in bunker in the basement of her apartment block. It still contains a huge Soviet-era map spread across one of the rooms.

Nataliya is filming things with her phone on the end of what looks like a yellow selfie stick.
"That looks heavy Nataliya."
"Yes, it is. I could kill you with it, actually."

We meet with Vitaliy, who runs a volunteer organization raising money to buy necessities for civilians and the army. "Every Ukrainian born in the last 100 years has had to fight for their freedom," he tells me.

Earlier on the day, amid the rubble of a bomb site we find a Ukrainian Trident (Tryzub).

"Yes," says Oleksiy with satisfaction. "#Ukraine will rise again."

I end on a rare bit of video footage from Saltivka. This is a taste of what it's like on the front, where you really understand the horrors of #Russia's 🇷🇺 war on #Ukraine 🇺🇦.

Don't forget about Ukraine.

[ENDS]

* All photos by the great @jm_stout - who you all should follow.