The
Defenders of Kharkiv: The Frontline
TVN
Discovery | 29min
Postproduction
script
[00:01 ON SCREEN TEXT
source:
youtube.com/Sono Adeel]
00:03 NARRATOR
Since the
beginning of the war, the Russian invaders have been relentlessly bombarding
Kharkiv, a city with one and a half million inhabitants. Rockets and bombs
continue falling on town districts, streets and squares. Civilians are dying:
children, women and elder people.
[00:05 ON SCREEN TEXT
source:
Twitter @nexta_tv
00:11 ON SCREEN TEXT
source:
nazaryan24
00:13 ON SCREEN TEXT
source: Twitter @SESU_UA]
00:17 ON SCREEN TEXT
source: Telegram Dmytro Zmyvytskyy]
00:18 NARRATOR
The Russians
want to take the city in order to move further south and cut off Ukrainian
forces fighting in the east of the country. But the defending Ukrainian
soldiers are putting up fierce and effective resistance. The battle for Kharkiv
has not yet been decided.
[00:21 ON SCREEN TEXT
source: Twitter @nexta_tv
00:22 ON SCREEN TEXT
source: Twitter @Contactupn]
00:35 TITLE
THE
DEFENDERS OF KHARKIV. ON THE FRONTLINE
00:45 NARRATOR
We drive
through endless blocks of flats. Kharkiv is the second most populous city in Ukraine,
a strategic industrial centre and an important transport hub. We arrive at
Severnaya Saltovka. This is a residential area on the north-eastern outskirts
of the city. It has been under constant attack by Russian troops since the
first days of the war. We are meeting with an officer, the commander of a small
unit defending a housing estate made up of tower blocks. We ask him to show us
around his area.
01:21 VOLODYA
And what is your name, brother?
01:22 MICHAŁ
Michał [meehau]
01:23 VOLODYA
Misha, yes?
01:24 MICHAŁ
Yes. And what is your name?
01:29 VOLODYA
Volodya.
01:30 MICHAŁ
It’s a pleasure to meet you.
01:33 NARRATOR
Ukrainian
armoured personnel carriers and a cannon are set up between these buildings.
The tall buildings provide safe cover. A fortnight ago, the Russians tried to
demolish this housing estate.
01:45 MICHAŁ
Oh my God, there are civilian buildings here
01:49 VOLODYA
Well, yes...
01:50 MICHAŁ
What were they shooting at?
01:52 VOLODYA
A bomb dropped here, a half-ton son of a bitch.
01:56 MICHAŁ
It is, after all, an apartment building. A flat.
01:59 VOLODYA
Yes, people spent half their lives saving money to buy apartments here…
02:05 MICHAŁ
Oh my God.
02:06 NARRATOR
Severnaya
Saltovka is being shelled incessantly. Every day there are dozens of attacks.
In spite of this, people still live in some of these flats.
02:18 MICHAŁ
Are you not afraid?
02:20 WOMAN IN WINDOW
Not any more. After what happened to that building, I am no longer afraid
of anything. I was afraid when the bomb was in the air.
02:27 MAN 1
Good morning, Madam.
02:28 WOMAN IN WINDOW
Good morning.
02:29 MAN 1
How are you?
02:30 WOMAN IN WINDOW
Well, the most important thing is that they don't fire.
02:35 MICHAŁ
Something is coming.
02:36 VOLODYA
Let’s go.
02:40 NARRATOR
The shelling
intensifies. We hide in the building of a car wash. The offices have been
abandoned in a great hurry as evidenced by leftover coffee in cups and
documents on tables. From the windows we can see the front line.
02:55 VOLODYA
It’s close by.
You can see it from here. Take a look. Where the smoke is.
03:05 MICHAŁ
I can see it.
03:06 VOLODYA
You will see
more soon. One, two. Over there, that faint smoke.
03:10 MICHAŁ
Yes, I
can see it. Let’s hope they don’t shoot at us.
03:15 VOLODYA
I have three wounds and two injuries. They haven’t managed to kill me in
eight years, they won't kill me now either.
03:22 MICHAL
Why eight years?
Were you in Donbas before this?
03:25 VOLODYA
Yes. I took part in
the Debaltsev Kettle.
03:28 MICHAŁ
In the Debaltsev
Kettle?
03:30 VOLODYA
Yes.
03:33 NARRATOR
The Battle of Debaltsev is the biggest defeat of the
Ukrainian army in the 2015 Donbas War. More than 260 Ukrainian soldiers were
killed in the fighting.
03:45 MICHAŁ
What is the scariest
thing about war?
03:50 VOLODYA
The scariest and
most unpleasant thing is gathering the bodies of your enemies and your own from
the battlefield.
03:58 MICHAŁ
Did you collect
bodies?
03:59 VOLODYA
Yes.
[04:01 ON SCREEN
TEXT
source: Twitter @nexta_tv]
04:03 NARRATOR
In 2022, the Ukrainian army has proved to be much
stronger than seven years ago. It has been defending itself for over three
weeks, inflicting massive losses on the Russians.
04:16 MICHAŁ
What is your main
goal now? Not to let them enter the city or what?
04:25 VOLODYA
My main objective is
to follow my orders, which are not to let the Russians into the city. And to
inflict as much damage on them as possible. We didn't want them here... They
are attacking our positions.
04:41 MICHAŁ
The building trembled.
04:43 VOLODYA
We cannot let them
into town. Why have they come here? [04:47] I would like to tell the Russian
soldiers to go home and not to bother us any more. Either captivity or death
awaits you here. You will be feeding yourselves to the worms back in Mother
Russia. Go home.
04:56 NARRATOR
For the time being no explosions can be heard. We move
on. Although the district is under military control, from time to time we meet
civilian passerbys.
05:06 MICHAŁ
Do you live here?
05:07 WOMAN 1
Yes. We do.
05:08 MICHAŁ
And why did you not leave?
05:10 WOMAN 1
And where should we go?
05:12 MICHAŁ
But here...
05:14 WOMAN 1
We have nowhere to go. And we have nothing to leave in.
05:15 WOMAN 2
Don’t you worry...
05:20 MICHAŁ
What if we drove you now to South Station?
05:22 WOMAN 2
And where are they waiting for us?
05:25 MICHAŁ
You can go to Kiev and then to Poland.
05:26 WOMAN 2
Tell us who is waiting for us there.
05:29 MICHAŁ
Poles help a lot.
05:31 WOMAN 2
Who? Maybe for a month, two, three, and then what?
05:33 MICHAŁ
You can come back.
05:35 WOMAN 2
If we move, we will never return.
05:40 NARRATOR
We reach a
makeshift shelter in the basement of one of the blocks of flats. It is here
that the soldiers and other residents of the housing estate hide from Russian
shelling. For a while it gets calmer, so we stand outside.
05:53 MICHAŁ
Why did you not
evacuate your family to Poland, for example?
06:00 VOLODYA
Why would I? This is our home, this is where we were
born.
06:02 MICHAŁ
Do you have children?
06:03 VOLODYA
Two
06:04 MICHAŁ
Are you fighting for them?
06:06 VOLODYA
Of course. for whom else? If there is peace at home, we
are also at peace.
06:15 NARRATOR
Suddenly
artillery fire starts. We head down to the shelter.
06:24 VOLODYA
To the shelter! This is all very close.
06:39 MICHAŁ
You need to keep close to the wall. (06:46) Is it often
like this?
06:48 VOLODYA
Always.
06:50 MICHAŁ
At night too?
06:52 SOLDIER 1
Yes.
06:56 NARRATOR
The housing
complex has been almost completely destroyed. Windows have fallen out along
with their frames, and it is freezing inside the buildings. The Russians who
bombarded this place could have had no doubt that the target was a group of
flats full of civilians, including women and children. This is undoubtedly a
war crime.
07:18 VOLODYA
This is where it flew in. You can see it caught the tiles on the roof.
There's only one left. Two were ripped off. And that's where they dropped the
bomb. The whole house has been blown apart.
07:35 MICHAŁ
Because of that one shelling?
07:38 VOLODYA
Yes, it's all from one bomb. (07:41) Looks like is was
from a 500 bomb. [FAB-500 bomb? – trans.]
07:42 MICHAŁ
From a half a tonne bomb?
07:43 VOLODYA
Yes.
07:50 MICHAŁ
All right, take care, guys. I'm heading back to my crew.
07:56 SOLDIER 2
Thank you, Poles. Thank you for your support and for
having accepted our loved ones as refugees. Thank you.
08:06 NARRATOR
We meet an
elderly man in front of one of the blocks of flats. Mr Leonid did not manage to
leave in time. We offer him a lift to where the evacuation trains leave from.
08:16 LEONID
I no longer have anything.
08:18 MICHAŁ
Do you have anything to eat?
08:20 LEONID
A neighbour gave me food, but it’s already run out. I wanted to leave.
There isn’t anyone left I didn’t try to call!
08:25 REPORTER
And you want to leave, yes?
08:27 LEONID
Very much so! Even right now!
08:28 REPORTER
We can take you with us.
08:29 MICHAŁ
Take your things, your documents...
08:31 REPORTER
You can leave with us right away.
08:35 LEONID
To South Station, right?
08:36 REPORTER
We will take you somewhere.
08:39 MICHAŁ
Come on, quickly.
08:42 NARRATOR
Together with
Mr Leonid we go to the shelter. The elderly man tells us his story. For almost
three weeks he vegetated in his flat. Despite the cold, lack of electricity and
food, he managed to survive. Because of the shelling, he was afraid to flee on
foot.
09:00 LEONID
I have been left
alone, I have been alone here for eighteen days now, on the ninth floor. I
think I should leave too. You can go crazy because of all this... Listening to
explosions all day and night.
09:21 MICHAŁ
And where do you
intend to go to?
09:23 LEONID
I will take the
train to Poltava. My sister lives there. She says it is calmer there than in
Kharkiv.
09:31 MICHAŁ
And your wife?
09:33 LEONID
She died.
09:37 MICHAŁ
Long ago?
09:43 LEONID
We lived for 50
years…
09:45 MICHAŁ
Together?
09:51 MICHAŁ
Did you live in
Kharkiv?
09:52 LEONID
Yes.
09:57 NARRATOR
When the
shelling temporarily quietens down we drive away from Severnaya Saltovka, Mr.
Leonid leaves his housing complex for the first time since the fighting broke
out. He is surprised that somewhere in Kharkiv a seemingly normal life is going
on.
10:11 LEONID
I see a normal town before me. Life goes on here, cars drive, people walk.
It’s as if i was in a different city.
10:24 MICHAŁ
All of this
frightens us. There is glass everywhere. Buildings lie in ruins.
10:31 LEONID
I saw a woman
walking by, I don't know if she was going home, but she was carrying some food
and toys in a plastic bag. I was standing in the stairwell at the time because
my phone was charging. A moment later I heard an explosion, I think a piece of
shrapnel hit her directly. The woman fell to the ground, she was covered in
blood. The soldiers helped her, loaded her into a car and drove her to
hospital. I do not know what happened to her next.
11:05 MICHAŁ
Could
you tell us what life was like in Kharkiv before the war?
11:11 LEONID
It
was normal.
11:15 MICHAŁ
What
does this mean?
11:16 LEONID
I
mean it was peaceful. We did not have any problems. Everything was fine. I had
a summer house nearby. I used to go there often... And what’s this?
11:33 REPORTER
I don’t know.
11:34 LEONID
I think it’s a queue
for bread. We’re driving past a bakery.
11:40 REPORTER
Is this a bakery?
11:41 LEONID
Yes, a large bakery
produces bread here on a mass scale. People are queueing up to buy bread.
13:01 NARRATOR
We reach the centre of Kharkiv. The city is heavily
devastated, it is difficult to find a building that has not been hit by a
Russian rocket. The aggressors shelled squares and streets full of people.
Terrorised residents have taken refuge in metro stations. Many of them have
been living there for more than three weeks. They know that going to the
surface could end in death.
13:31 MICHAŁ
Have you thought about leaving?
13:36 WOMAN 3
No. I cannot leave this place. My parents' graves are here. My relatives
live here. No. My son used to visit you. We have a lot of friends in Poland. As
I said, my great-grandfather was Polish, I have Polish roots. Distant ones, but
I do have Polish roots.
14:02 WOMAN 4
I am Ukrainian. My mother is Russian. My husband is Ukrainian. We have
family in Kursk, and so what? We had very good relations. We also have family
in Kiev. What has he done, this monster? After each day you wonder if you still
have a home. There are old people left there, animals. Those who stayed at home
because they can't get to the metro are dying from the bombing. All because of
this "liberator" who came to free us. We Ukrainians have never
received anything good from these Russians.
14:55 MICHAŁ
Milana, how old are you? Three?
14:59 MILANA
Yes.
15:01 MICHAŁ
Do you like it here?
15:03 MILANA
Yes.
15:05 MICHAŁ
And did you enjoy it at home too?
15:08 MILANA
Yes, but now there is war in the street.
15:11 MICHAŁ
War in the street?
15:13 MILANA
Yes. We are to go to another house and there will be other people there.
15:32 WOMAN 5 (MIEDIEDEVA)
They are bombing people just like them. After all, not everyone here is
Ukrainian. My mother is Ukrainian and my father is Russian. I am both Russian
and Ukrainian. Putin says he is defending the Russians. But from whom? From
ourselves? Or from his fascism? Let him come and see how people live. This is
not life. This is a pigsty. Pigs have better conditions than we have now. But
we are prepared to put up with it all. If only there was a light at the end of
the tunnel [as in hope – trans.]. But there is no such light...
16:03 WOMAN 6
At some point we all became homeless.
16:07 WOMAN 5 (MIEDIEDEVA)
We’ve lost everything. They tell us: Please be patient, Kharkiv will
rebuild. Our optimism is gone, we are on the brink. [16:21] Putin, if you hear
me, may blue hellfire engulf you! My name is Miedviedeva, a Russian. May you
burn in hell!
16:37 WOMAN 7
Tiny babies shiver, they react to even the slightest rustle. Pregnant women
have premature births, they are taken away from here, but births should not
begin like this, so prematurely. These are the tears of women and mothers. I
want people all around the world to spread all these videos straight away so
that everyone knows. Russia is propagating a lie, lying to the nation, to
society. Their sons are dying for nothing. For nothing, do you understand? For
Putin's want of money! Let Russia know what their ruler is doing.
17:27 SOLDIER 2
Watch your step so that you don't step on shrapnel or nails and get hurt.
[17:35] This is shrapnel from a missile. It was an air strike.
17:44 SOLDIER 3
This is part of a bomb. Shrapnel. Heavy. [17:51] Look at the concrete.
Completely blown away. [18:00] More or less, from east to west. That was it’s
trajectory. Here one, there the second and third. The fourth one hit this
hangar, all this equipment has been destroyed.
[18:17] Let’s move on.
18:18 MICHAŁ
A shockwave can kill too, can't it?
18:20 SOLDIER 3
Sure. You can imagine the scale of impact if even the equipment has been
destroyed.
18:31 NARRATOR
We are in
Okhtyrka. The Russian troops must capture it in order to encircle and imprison
the defenders of Kharkiv. But the Ukrainian soldiers defending the town are
successfully repelling the invaders.
18:50 SOLDIERS
Quickly, quickly.
18:56 NARRATOR
We hear an
explosion. We have to enter a makeshift shelter.
19:01 MICHAŁ
And what did they hit it with? Grad artillery?
19:05 SOLDIER 4
I don't know what it was. It was
probably Grad artillery [BM-21 Grad – trans.], but it’s somewhere far away. Our
guys are firing, I just don't know where from. [19:18] Yesterday those of us
with the major broke up a convoy. They destroyed 15 cars. And their tank!
19:22 SOLDIER 5
Theirs?
19:23 SOLDIER 4
Yes.
19:25 SOLDIER 5
Awesome.
19:30 SOLDIER 6 (could be the same
as 5)
The first days were a real shock, so much was happening... We were still
afraid that "Kadyrovites" would appear.
19:39 MICHAŁ
To be honest, we thought Okhtyrka was gone. Because they said so. They
really do. [19:46] Thirty aerial bombs?
19:36 SOLDIER 6
After twenty we stopped counting.
19:47 MICHAŁ
Is it always like this?
19:49 SOLDIER 6
With breaks, ten-fifteen minutes.
19:54 SOLDIER 4
They wanted to sow panic so that people would flee, retreat from their
positions, abandon their military positions, run away from their land… Fear is
now contagious.
20:16 NARRATOR
Cluster shells,
which are banned by the Geneva Convention, fall on Okhtyrka. They shatter into
hundreds of deadly fragments, spreading death and destruction within a radius
of hundreds of metres.
20:18 MICHAŁ
And why is the glass broken? What happened to the nursery?
20:25 MAN 2
Grad bombs.
20:28 SOLDIER 7
See, here is one cluster shell, here is another. [20:30] I will show the grads. Come on.
20:34 MICHAŁ
Is this a cluster shell ?
20:35 MAN 3 [NOT VISIBLE]
Yes.
20:37 SOLDIER 7
These are all over the city.
20:40 MAN 3
They hit us with these on the first day.
20:41 SOLDIER 7
It has been lying here since day one. They are lying all over the city.
[20:48] Around the kindergarten everything looks like this.
20:49 MICHAŁ
And this is a kindergarten?
20:51 SOLDIER 7
Yes.
20:56 NARRATOR
We meet up
with the mayor of the town, who helps us understand the situation of the
defending Okhtyrka.
21:01 MAYOR
They are destroying our town, killing civilians. Even today several people
were killed during a night-time bombardment. They are not human beings, we call
them 'orcs' because that is what they are. They are killing civilians. We can
defend ourselves and we are already defeating them.
21:24 REPORTER
How many people in total died in Okhtyrka?
21:26 MAYOR
I can’t answer that. A lot. We will give you the figures once we win.
[21:34] Let’s go, we will show you everything.
21:36 REPORTER
What is the situation in general?
21:39 MAYOR
They keep firing, they bomb us every night. The bombs are the worst.
[20:45] We’re heading out.
21:46 MICHAŁ
We will follow you.
21:50 NARRATOR
Engineer
Ruslan Pytko joins us. He is a soldier of the local Territorial Defence. He
fights and helps people in the destroyed city. He leads a group of volunteers
who dig people out from under the rubble.
22:06 RUSLAN
I am from Okhtyrka. My wife is here for now, my daughter was in Kiev, but
she left. Today we have a lot of work, about twenty people work under me. We’ve
been to private houses destroyed by bombs. I was there and saw the dead under
the rubble. [21:31] Even when I myself was under the rubble, I didn't feel as
bad as I do now, after seeing those people… A whole housing estate was
destroyed. They knew who they were shooting at, when they dropped bombs. They
also knew what they were going to hit, when they used machine guns they also
knew. They shot from that building in that direction. People ran there to hide
from the the Grad bombs, the "hail" [Grad as in Grad artillery means
"hail" – trans.]. And they started shooting at them with machine
guns. It was really terrible. Such things can not to be forgiven.
23:04 NARRATOR
Together with
the mayor we watch the aftermath of the destruction caused by another weapon
used by the Russians. Here the aggressors dropped a vacuum bomb. It sucks the
oxygen out of a huge area, killing and destroying everything within a radius of
many metres. The bomb literally sucks the air out of human lungs and
incinerates the victims.
23:26 MAYOR
Here, shoot this. This piece of rail flew one hundred metres and slammed
into this tree so hard. This is all from that vacuum bomb explosion. [23:41]
They wanted to completely destroy the city. They thought that if there was no
heating in the city, the inhabitants would fall to their knees and say: Putin,
save us! But we say: Putin - die! [23:56] We have been digging for three days. We
still haven't found three people.
24:00 RUSLAN
They shot with a large calibre at that building when people were clearing
out rubble. I was shocked. I can’t fathom it. They are no longer men, they are
beasts. I understand if they drop bombs when the cannot see. But when you shoot
with a machine gun, you see the people! Through the crosshair you can see who
your are shooting at. You have to understand, volunteers were already cleaning
up the rubble, when they were shot at with a large-calibre machine gun.
24:31 MICHAŁ
I found out that you were previously a surgeon.
24:33 MAYOR
I am still.
24:35 MICHAŁ
Before it all started did you still perform surgeries?
24:42 MAYOR
Yes. I am still performing them. I have not stopped operating. I still carry
out complicated operations.
24:51 MICHAŁ
Do you have a family?
24:52 MAYOR
Of course.
24:55 MICHAŁ
And where are your children?
24:57 MAYOR
I am not going to talk about that. They are here. In our country. In
Ukraine. [25:07] People are forced to be in the cold, hungry, without water,
without food. This is what they do… And who acted like this? This is what
Stalin did. This is how he destroyed our people.
25:26 MICHAŁ
How many degrees is it at night?
25:28 MAYOR
Once it hit minus seventeen.
25:36 RUSLAN
When I came drove by here today, I almost cried. Maybe because I was
already tired, or maybe because of what I saw. There are no strategic points
here, people were living here peacefully. And I saw these two dead women...
It's very difficult. I wanted to cry.
After what I saw I feel like taking a gun and heading straight to
Moscow. There is no other way out.
26:07 MAYOR
Around eight or nine PM this area was bombed. Two elderly women were
killed. Both were hiding in the basement. One of the bombs fell directly into
the basement and exploded there. One of these women was here literally for one
day. She came from the village to pack her things and she died here yesterday.
26:40 MICHAŁ
What was that building?
26:41 MAYOR
The Okhtyrka railway station. [26:46] This is the work of executioners, not
people, murderers, not just Putinists. Those who drop bombs on us are
murderers, hardened criminals, thugs.
27:06 MICHAŁ
This is just hell.
27:08 MAYOR
This is not hell yet. I will show you hell next.
27:18 MICHAŁ
Please tell us how many victims you’ve seen?
27:22 RUSLAN
I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to talk about it out loud.
27:29 MICHAŁ
How did you manage to get out of here?
27:31 RUSLAN
We were in a shelter. People came
out, they were pulled out one by one. When they pulled out the thirteenth
person, I was so happy that everyone was okay. Albeit wounded, at least they
were alive. We were shining flashlights... There was dust everywhere, you
couldn't see anything. I turned on a flashlight, a powerful one. I turned it on
and they came out, heading towards the light. From that side. They got out
there. Here, from under the rubble. Thirteen people.
28:02 NARRATOR
We meet a
woman who did not want to leave her home town. She is one of several hundred
people in Okhtyrka who preferred to stay, to help others and to support the
army.
28:17 REPORTER
Where do you work?
28:18 KATYUSHA
I am a chemical analysis laboratory technician.
28:23 MICHAŁ
Before the war, yes?
28:24 KATYUSHA
What do you mean before the war? I still work, every day, I have no days
off. I'm at work in the morning, then we take people out, and at night we sew
stuff for the boys. At least it's not boring! There is no time to be depressed.
[28:41] The middle son is still traumatised by these explosions. The child
wakes up at night, screaming, crying. It’s very tough. What can I say? The city
is dying. In front of our eyes. They are killing the city. We work for the
community, we want the city to survive.
So that the children have a place to return to. I entered a stairwell,
and there was blood there. Terrible. [29:11] Today I buried a young boy, a good
guy, he tuned pianos. Our Sergei. Ten minutes wouldn’t be enough to list all
the dead and wounded. I am ready to die for Ukraine. I am ready to give my life
for the future of my children. I am not afraid. We will fight. For our
Okhtyrka, for our Ukraine. To the very end.
29:44 RUSLAN
Don't cry, Katyusha. We will win anyway.