Everything is full of ghosts around Kiev. Irpin, a town that hardly anyone in the world knew, became an emblem of this war. For the Kievis, it was the serene village to go to get some fresh air and walk through its sacred forest on the river side. For the Russians it was going to be - so they planned it - the small city in which to base from there to enter Kiev. For journalists it was soon a cursed place: the district where three reporters trying to do their jobs were murdered. Thus, Irpin became a forbidden place from the beginning of the war. And a symbol of resistance, because even though it was taken, it never gave up.
A month after that occupation, the Russians were expelled without having managed to enter Kiev. They left behind a hell, a ghost town, a sprinkler of mines and explosive traps and some hidden snipers who did not want to leave their positions. There is no gas, no electricity and there are very few civilians left. But one day, after the darkest nights, Irpin was free again, even though freedom cannot show a happy face in this case. On the contrary, only the specter of what once was. Although there are very few permits, Infobae managed to enter.
Returning to Irpin just a week ago seemed impossible. The facts were hasty. Ukrainian forces began to advance over the lost villages around Kiev and gradually recovered them: Bucha, Brovary, Moshchun, Hostomel... Irpin was undoubtedly the most difficult task due to the size and deployment of the Russian occupation, which had completely dominated it. The world was shocked when on March 31 the Ukrainian government announced that they had regained control of the city and that local police were already patrolling the streets. Was that possible? Was it related to the withdrawal of Russian forces from the area announced by the Kremlin? Like many other times, discourse and information can be accommodated according to the facts, and it is not known whether the Russians said that to hide a defeat, or if it was truly a strategic retreat. Anyway, Irpin once again occupied the front pages of this war.
It had been a month ago when the bombardments and attacks on the humanitarian corridor continued in the middle of the evacuation of civilians. Infobae lived it in his own flesh, and was able to witness the desperation with which the inhabitants of the city fled. What could not be known at that time was what specific horror they were fleeing from, what was it that made them come out without looking back. “Don't go there, it's hell, go,” civilians said at the time as they left. A city of sixty thousand inhabitants of which in the end only three thousand remained, barely 5% of the population.
The official data, according to Oleksandr Markushin (mayor of Irpin), is that Russian troops killed 300 civilians and 50 soldiers, and destroyed 50% of the city. The casualties of the Ukrainian army are not usually announced, the same official spokesmen say that these numbers are not given. It is not known what price Ukraine had to pay for having Irpin again, nor the price that the war is taking, but everyone agrees that nothing is too high to retain its independence. “We would rather lose our lives than lose the country,” says a young man from the Territorial Defenses who is guarding a checkpoint.
Mayor Markushin also reported that “many are buried in yards and parks, others are still under the rubble. Irpin is a heroic people who have prevented enemies from entering the capital.” What happened in there? What horror could not be shown? Irpin is also the place where three journalists, two Americans and one Ukrainian, were killed, all while trying to enter to show what was happening.
Today the climate around Kiev is different. It is not relaxed or calm, but it is less tense and less dangerous than a week ago, when taking most of the roads to the northwest could lead to death or a direct confrontation with Russian forces. Today on the road there is absolute Ukrainian control.
The arrival in Irpin is not by any of the direct roads of Kiev. The main one is impossible because the bridge that joined the two cities is destroyed, the other large avenue that arrives has huge craters that make it impassable. So, you have to go southwest and then out of Kiev start climbing.
As the landscape approaches the area - landscape, what word - becomes -another word- apocalyptic. The roads are beginning to darken, there is no longer clean asphalt or clear paths, now a lot of fallen trees, a lot of branches on the road, holes everywhere, stains as if balls of black paint had fallen all around. At one point, next to a highway before entering Irpin, an incinerated fuel station. Next to her, military checkpoints, soldiers resting in houses that were destroyed, some sitting on the floor leaning against a ruined wall looking at the cell phone.
And you get to the last checkpoint before the city. Few journalists' cars are being allowed to enter. The police claim that they cannot take care of them all because they are still patrolling and cleaning the streets of the village. Read clearance: mine theft and sniper detection. Some rumors indicate that there are still 100 Russian soldiers hiding in the area and that is why they do not allow free entry.
The car carrying Infobae is supposed to have the authorization. After a few minutes in the Vlad - the fixer of the day - he talks to the militias, they allow entry. After a few meters in the forest, the trees look black at their base and brown upwards. It is a beautiful and humid forest that does not give any calm, it follows the route and after a bend the first postcard of an abandoned village finally appears: on the street, covering it almost entirely, a destroyed Russian tank. Vlad says he is Russian, and then he asked to see a piece of Russian flag as well, but you don't get to see either the inscription of the V or the Z, the two letters characteristic of the invaders. A few blocks away, however, you do see a letter V painted on a car crossed on the road to cut the passage.
The tank almost lost its shape, the cannon is on the ground, the wheels and chains detached. Behind it, a mountain of unused ammunition, buried in the mud. It's all destruction, there are burned cars on the side of the street. There are also others who did not burn but have countless holes in the windshield and doors, someone used them to cover themselves during a shooting. Almost all of them have the hood open and in the houses you see destruction that is not exclusively shelling. Here, unlike the war in the rest of the country, there was urban combat, troops from Ukraine and Russia fighting street by street, a few meters from each other. That, we know, happens today in Mariupol.
After a zigzag between the cars, you reach the first roundabout inside the city. On the road to the right there is a wide road in the direction of Kiev, which is where the cars left for the main bridge that was blown up. What you see now is a huge traffic jam of cars with no one inside, a line of vehicles that were looking to get out but were abandoned when the shooting and bombing began. A lot of those cars are destroyed, most of them. None are intact, that doesn't exist, but there are completely burned, and there are them without glass, barely shot.
This was the main route of evacuation, where most of the more than 50 thousand people who fled came out. Some arrived by car, left it and walked, and others directly made the entire journey on foot. And one day, between March 1st and 6th, the Russians, frustrated, began to bathe the the area with fire. They wanted to enter through that bridge into Kiev, but the Ukrainian army flew the pass over the Irpin River and set up their defense front behind the other bank. This is how the fire against fire began, with civilians in the middle trying to flee, with the Ukrainian army trying to stop the Russian advance, and with the occupation troops mansillating everything in front of them, without respecting the obvious humanitarian corridor that was to open there.
Here you can see, now, the hell in which those who were looking to get out. Only the zombies are missing and this would complete the perfect setting for the new season of Walking Dead. It is not, however, a fiction. It is not one of the living dead but of the dry.
The bridge is a famous image of the beginning of the war, the car turned over the water, the narrow and dangerous path to Kiev, among rubble and the river running. On the other side, the forest, the enchanted forest in which for four weeks the bombings and gunshots were heard, from which the smoke was seen, and the desperate faces of civilians.
Vlad says to leave. There's only one more stop left before we leave town. Drive the van to the center. It does not stop, but you can see the square where the cinema is, bathed in rocks, pieces of statues that broke into a thousand parts. The main avenue leads to the largest park in Irpin.
In the forest the first thing you hear is the barking of a dog, another one whose house was bombed and evacuated by its owners but the dog continues. It's big and beautiful and a little fierce. His house - only his house, now - is in front of the park. Again you can see the black spots on the ground, they are the places where some low-caliber mortar struck. On the way to the center of the square you can see an almost intact bench, except for a board broken by a shot. A little further, in the middle of the park, a mountain of sand with a cross. It says: “Maria Sharapova. 4/02/1939 - 6/03/2022. Sadoba 38″. It is his date of birth (in 1939), and his date of death (in full occupation, in the middle of the battle of Irpin, on March 6 of this year). Two meters from his grave is an open wallet and some women's belongings, there is a lipstick, a comb, a perfume, a light blue bodice, a shopping ticket. It is not known whether it was Mary's or another woman's, or if she died where she was buried or elsewhere and taken there. It is one of the images that the mayor warned that are repeated in Irpin, people buried in the squares and gardens of houses.
“Russian tanks crushed the bodies of dead residents and made fun of women,” the mayor also said, but those crushed bodies were removed a day earlier.
A man appears walking down the street. He has dark circles painted black, an inflated jacket, a sleeping bag on his hands. He asks for a cigarette, they give him and light it up. He is returning home to Irpin because he has no money to be anywhere else. He spent the last 16 days in Kiev, sleeping with his bag in the subway, but he can't stand it anymore. He says his house is destroyed, and he's walking towards it. You can't accompany him, he's a few blocks beyond the limit imposed by the police. Seeing him walk, it's hard and it's sad but it's true, it looks like the zombie that was missing dystopia.
Vlad insists on leaving town because it's getting dark and it's not safe. Already the van and it goes through it all over again. The same broken glass, the windows come out, the roofs are pierced. In each pass, new forms of destruction are discovered. Leaving Irpin, you see a German car hit with a paper sign stuck on the windshield. It says “children.” No one can be seen inside, the airbag jumped, the windows burst, but there is no trace of blood. Next to the car, ammunition remains, the type of weapon is not identified. Before arriving in Ukraine I didn't know anything about weaponry; today little else, but I saw them all. I only learned to photograph weapons, others learned to use them. Going away from you is part of this too.
The last checkpoint before leaving Irpin has a destroyed car with a waving Ukrainian flag and a badge written on it: “Russian ship, go to hell”. They say it every time they can.
On the way back, the press office of the Kiev Oblast will report that you cannot go to Irpin for the next three days, nor to Bucha (where the bodies of dozens of civilians killed in its streets were photographed today), nor to Brovary, another town recovered by Ukraine. The statement reads: “Intensified curfew in the liberated settlements of the Kiev region from 9:00 p.m. on 2 April to 06:00 a.m. on 5 April. It is strictly forbidden to be on the streets and in other public places, to move by transport and on foot. All recommendations of the authorities should be followed and not go outside during the prohibited time. Exception: an alarm signal to go to the shelter. It is important to eliminate the consequences of Russian aggression: to clean and demine territories. Don't try to return to these settlements now!”
Everything is full of ghosts around Kiev.
Photos and Video: Franco Fafasuli
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