Russia already imposes its anthem on the return to school under the watch of armed soldiers of an occupied Ukrainian city

In the courtyard of the small Ukrainian city of Volnovakha (southeast), destroyed by the fighting and occupied by Russian troops, the national anthem of Russia welcomes the pupils under the eyes of armed soldiers.

Several dozen minors lined up in front of the establishment for the back-to-school ceremony, a month after the city fell to the Russian army and its separatist allies.

There is neither electricity nor telephone coverage here, according to AFP journalists who traveled to Volnovaja on a visit organized by the Russian army.

The many destroyed houses in Volnovaja are the silent witness to the battle for the city, halfway between the separatist capital of Donetsk and the port of Mariupol, which has been under siege by Russian forces for a month and a half.

Volnovaja, which had about 20,000 inhabitants before the war, was “liberated” from Ukrainian “neo-Nazis”, according to the language used by Russia, and life must run its course.

“It's time to learn, hurry up, children!” , shouts to her classmates a little girl with pink cheeks, with a microphone in her hand and white braids in her hair. The leaders of the school are behind it, next to a Russian flag and a separatist flag. Further, but clearly visible, a soldier wearing a balaclava and helmet watches over the scene, with a submachine gun in his hands.

When the anthem of Russia plays, whose music was inherited from the Soviet Union, children listen but do not sing, since they do not know the lyrics. Something that also happens to them with the anthem of the separatists.

“Russia, our sacred homeland (...) A powerful will, a great glory — they are your inheritance for all eternity!” , resonates with loudspeakers, one of the few electrical appliances that work.

Surviving the horror

The conquest of Volnovaya on March 11 allowed Russia to surround Mariupol to the north, a strategic port on the Azov Sea that was already under attack from the east and west.

Before that, and for two weeks, the Ukrainian defenses of the city suffered major attacks.

A month after the seizure of Volnovaja, rubble covers the streets and many houses, shops and civil infrastructure lie in ruins. In front of a destroyed hospital, trees are cut in two by shrapnel.

School No. 5, located in the center of the city, was also the target of bombardments, and many classrooms have disappeared. “We survived the horror, there were terrible bombings,” says Liudmila Jmara, 52, a school worker. But she preferred to stay because “where you are best is at home”.

She claims to want Volnovaja to be “part of Russia” and that no one “forces” her to speak Ukrainian, in this mostly Russian-speaking region of the Donbas. Moscow justifies its military intervention in Ukraine as a duty of protection of the “Russians” of the Donbas.

Living “in a hole”

The Russian army leaves nothing to chance, even in the absence of armed resistance: Russian armored cars and military vehicles decorated with the letter “Z” patrol the city among civilians by bicycle.

The municipal hospital operates on medium gas despite the numerous damage and lack of electricity.

In the dark, a nurse, Natalia Nekrasova-Mujina, 46 years old, claims that patients (both children, adults and the elderly) come mostly with injuries caused by explosions of howitzers.

Life for the neighbors who stayed is still a survival. “We have neither gas, nor water, nor electricity, nor telephone coverage. We live like in a hole,” says Liudmila Dryga, 72, retired.

Svetlana Shtsherbakova, 59, claims to have lost everything in a fire that devastated her house. “Humanitarian aid only came to us once,” this former supermarket security officer explains with a thread of voice.

An employee of the railways, Anton Varusha, 35, believes that less than half of his street residents returned alive to Volnovaja.

“I don't know if I'll stay yet. At the moment I have my parents, who are older and sick,” he says. “We try to listen to different radio stations to understand what is going on. But it's hard to have other sources of information” without internet or electricity, he explains.

(With information from AFP/by Andrey Borodulin)

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