Reuters
News from the NOS•today, 11:15
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Chiem Balduk
Foreign publisher
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Chiem Balduk
Foreign publisher
“Everywhere I looked I saw blood, dead people and torn bodies. Nobody should see what I should have seen there.” Talking is Alena Krilova from Melitopol. Last week he was part of a civilian convoy en route from the free Ukraine to his city in Russian-occupied territory. A missile attack finished dozens of lives, Alena narrowly escaped death.
The Ukrainian had gone to the front lines in the city of Zaporizhzhya, in free Ukraine, to stock up on medicines for the elderly in need in the occupied territories, where there is a serious shortage of medical supplies. In recent months, civilian convoys with relief supplies have been able to cross the front with relative ease from Zaporizhzhya.
Since last week’s attack, this is a thing of the past: the passage is closed. For Alena it means that she is indefinitely separated from her daughter, who in Melitopol is looked after by an acquaintance. She is stranded in Zaporizhzhya, who was hit last night from Russian missile attacks.
The previous attack took place at a so-called filtration site, on the site of a car market south of Zaporizhzhya:
NOS / Maxar
This assembly point was hit by the 30 September missile attack For months now, the automotive market has been a well-known meeting point for civil convoys. To be able to cross the first line, all vehicles must be checked (filtered).
Russian roulette
Friday 30 September started early for Alena. She got up at 4 in the morning without a wink. “I couldn’t sleep all night,” says Alena. “It must have been an omen.” At the filtration site, she and her father joined a row of cars. “There were already a lot of people who had arrived the night before. They were on the front line.”
At that point, at the head of the line, a rocket landed shortly after seven. “I heard a big explosion and I immediately understood: it doesn’t stop there.” She immediately jumped out of her car and yelled at passersby to lie down on the ground. “A man stood silent because of the shock, with a baby in his arms.” More explosions followed.
She describes the situation as a Russian roulette wheel, in which the cars around her were accidentally destroyed by rockets. “I couldn’t help but wait. In the meantime, I was already mentally saying goodbye to life.” She withstood the rain of rockets, just like the man and the child.
Not only did the attack destroy dozens of lives. The supply of medicines is also over, says ‘Fox’, who for security reasons does not want to reveal his real name. He works in Melitopol as a kind of shadow pharmacist. Characters known as Alena “smuggle” medicines into the occupied territories, which she then distributes to needy elderly and disabled people in the region.
Such assistance must take place in the utmost secrecy. Leaders of humanitarian organizations have been arrested and deported, as have local administrators, because they are said to be “collaborating with the enemy”. Fox therefore tries to stay under the radar. “If they find me, they will take everything and send me to the front.”
EPA
The convoy vehicles were loaded with supplies for the occupied territories My help is a lifesaver, says Fox. The shadow pharmacist shows a file with about a thousand names of elderly people in and around Melitopol that he takes care of. One needs diclofenac, antacids and diapers, the other just pain relievers. He is already noticing the consequences of closing the first line. “I can go on for another month, but some drugs are gone already.”
no compassion
Without his help, they won’t get these resources, he says. What is available in official pharmacies is priceless. Providing drugs isn’t a priority for Russians, Fox says. “With that mobilization, we saw that Moscow has no compassion for its people, let alone us. They want to break us mentally and physically so that they can establish a dictatorship.”
This seems paradoxical: after all, it is important for the permanent conservation of the occupied territories hearts and minds by the local population. To some extent it does, says Fox. “Food parcels and even electric cookers are being distributed. But many gifts are selfish: for example, people have been given TV boxes so that they can watch Russian state TV.”
In any case, Alena’s soul will not be conquered by the Russians. “I never really understood the Ukrainians’ antipathy to the Russians, because the whole battle was not really part of my life. But from the missile attack, I completely understand the anger.”
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