This is the continuation of the first part of the material about the occupation of Yahidne village in the Chernihiv region.
Hunger and Thirst
At first, there was only water—whatever anyone managed to bring from home. Then, when no one had anything left, we began negotiating to let a few people out onto the street—at least to boil water on a fire, at least to give the children something warm.
We didn’t succeed in negotiating on the first try. Under the responsibility of local rescuers, they let a few people out to cook food. As for products—go, take whatever anyone has, bring it from home.
They allowed us to run home for half an hour. We managed to bring what was left: a few jars of baby food, another box of formula. The refrigerator was already empty—meat and canned goods had been taken. We took only a jar of cucumbers and a net of potatoes.
Everything people brought was handed over to the makeshift kitchen. You couldn’t call it soup—boiling water, a little potato, someone brought an onion.
We ate from plastic cups, 200 grams each—one for two people. We collected the thick parts for the children so it would be at least a little substantial. The adults finished the water.
Sometimes the occupiers gave their rations—aviation rations. They warned: don’t eat too much, or your stomachs will hurt. They didn’t want them themselves. In the large room with over a hundred people, they brought three rations.
Once they brought pasta. But it was completely soaked in diesel fuel. We boiled it—it fell apart, impossible to eat. Whoever tried it had terrible diarrhea.
And so it was: watery broth once a day.
Disease and Death
Due to the lack of water, movement, and air, people began to get sick en masse. Legs swelled, kidneys hurt. Children coughed so hard they were choking—fevers near forty degrees, and no medicine whatsoever.
We asked the occupiers for at least something—nose drops, pills. They answered: “We have nothing. We are military medicine; we don’t do therapy.”
When they finally allowed some help to be given, they brought painkillers: Analgin with Dimedrol. The expiration dates had ended in 2012–2014.
People died in the basement—mostly the elderly, but those who were still strong before the war, kept farms, and worked gardens.
One man had come from Western Ukraine and lived in the village for over 50 years. He spoke pure Ukrainian and always wore a vyshyvanka. He said: “This is hell on earth; this cannot be happening.” They beat him—he was brought back with bruises; he said it was with rebar. He said that among those who beat him was a woman—she said something in her language, and they stopped.
They died painfully. Losing consciousness, screaming. Lack of water, circulation problems, kidney failure.
If a person died in the evening—and after six they didn’t let anyone out at all—they lay with everyone until morning. Sometimes for a full day, because sometimes they didn’t let us out for two days.
The first dead lay in the basement with the living for three days. Then they allowed them to be carried out to the boiler room.
Burials Under Fire
When several bodies had accumulated, people asked for permission to bury them. They allowed it.
They carried them in a garden cart. Spring, mud. They dragged them through the village to the cemetery.
They hadn’t managed to dig even a meter deep when an APC drove up and started shooting. Shooting at the people. Several people were wounded—one had a bone in his leg shattered; he walked with a cane for a long time afterward.
Help was not provided immediately. People shouted that the wounded man was bleeding out. Then they brought a painkiller—that same expired drug.
The wounded were taken back on the same garden carts—none of the occupiers helped.
Psychological Pressure
At night, armed men would come down. They shouted, looking for “young ones,” demanding “gold, diamonds.”
They forced one woman to drink 96% alcohol.
They would burst in, looking for phones. They threatened: “Hand over your phones! Otherwise, we will conduct a search and shoot every tenth person.”
They spread rumors: the young will be taken to one place, the old to another, children separately. Or they would say: “There are too many of you here; we will shoot you off little by little.” So that people would be afraid.
The occupiers did not get along with each other. They said: “We won’t go to those guys; there are total psychos over there.” Or: “We bear no responsibility for you; there are snipers all around. We have no contact with them.”
Liberation
On March 30, around noon, they let us out to get boiling water. Suddenly an APC flew in at high speed. Everyone was driven back into the basement.
Commotion was heard—equipment starting up, dragging things, carrying things. Everything was leaving. Tanks, APCs. Then—silence.
We sat for a few more hours. We were afraid to go out—what if they throw a grenade and say the Ukrainians killed their own?
One man couldn’t stand it—he said: “Let them shoot, I’m going home.” He went with a neighbor. The neighbor returned: “There is no one. An empty village. Everything is smashed, burned. But no one—not on the streets, nowhere.”
Then soldiers came out from around the corner. We heard the Ukrainian language. Our own.
The Return
We walked home—but there was nowhere to go. The house was destroyed: the kitchen smashed, the bathroom, windows blown out, no roof.
Inside—empty. Furniture taken out or destroyed. The TV shot through, sofas slashed with a knife, even children’s toys ripped open—they were looking for something. On one of the portraits, they carved the letter Z.
We saw our clothes on the occupiers. What they couldn’t take, they broke.
Aftermath
For the first weeks after liberation, no one could sleep lying down—only sitting. Terrible coughing, suffocation. We treated pneumonia with antibiotics, sat on inhalers.
Children were afraid of everything—if a car passed or a motorcycle started, they had hysterics. The little ones wouldn’t go to men for a long time—even to relatives.
Many people fell ill after the occupation. Doctors say these are the consequences of the basement.
One child, who was five years old then, only started coming to Yahidne this summer. Before—as soon as they approached the village, hysterics. Now she runs a little on the playground, but she doesn’t stay overnight.
About 70 people remain living in the village. Several families did not return. The rest are recovering little by little. The school will not work—they plan to make a museum there. Children are taken to neighboring villages.
My granddaughter is still with me—since the first day of the war. As soon as something bangs at night, immediately: “What is that? What is that?” I take her to another room, sit near her, wait until she calms down.
Now she has grown up—she runs around the yard, laughs. Sometimes she forgets to be afraid.
In the yard where the destroyed APC stood, flowers came up this summer. Not all of them—the earth still doesn’t bear fruit properly. But they came up.
The testimony was recorded from the words of a resident of Yahidne village, Chernihiv region, within the framework of the in-depth school on war storytelling and human rights “Truth through Stories,” implemented with the support of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
→ The material is also posted on the partner platform Svidok.org