The Ukrainians have liberated the town of Trostyanets following a month of Russian occupation. The occupiers left behind destruction, dead civilians and a shaken populace – who say the Russian soldiers didn’t even know why they were there in the first place. Two men slowly walk toward each other in the frigid wind, before recognizing each other and embracing in tears. “You’re alive!?” More and more men and women are beginning to emerge and wander through their own city as though it was completely foreign to them. Some are weeping as they view the destruction – the half-demolished buildings and burned-out factories. Others are crying in relief – relief that they have survived. That they are once again able to meet up with friends and family members from other parts of the city. (…) The Russians are also withdrawing from other cities in Ukraine, such as Irpin, the embattled town on the outskirts of Kyiv. But most of the settlements are completely destroyed fields of smoking rubble that the Russians never managed to bring completely under their control. Trostyanets, though, is now emerging from four weeks of Russian occupation, and it provides a look at how the aimless Russian invaders rapidly transformed into a murderous horde – one which increasingly, in the face of Ukrainian counterattacks, took out its fear and anger on the civilian population. (…) The occupiers, Rastislav says, made a practice of apprehending men at random, looking through their phones for photos of tanks and Russian positions and forcing them to undress in the search for tattoos that could indicate that they were part of the Ukrainian military. They would then shoot anyone they thought might be an enemy. (…) Between 300 and 600 Russian troops occupied the police headquarters, the train station and the airstrip for small aircraft. They then set up their quarters and erected barricades. Soon, though, they began running out of the rations they had brought along – and Ukrainian drones began attacking their positions. In early March, the Russians cut off the telephone network and electricity, which meant that the pump for drinking water ceased functioning as well. A cold snap led to temperatures plunging to minus 19 degrees Celsius. It became rather uncomfortable in the town, for both the occupied and the occupiers. But the Russians had control. Small groups of Russian soldiers began shooting their way into supermarkets and stores, taking supplies, stealing the televisions from an electronics store and destroying cash registers and cash machines. The destruction can still be seen several weeks later. “They even plundered the second-hand clothing store,” scoffs a resident who returned after the town was liberated. “Was that the plan? Invade the place to make off with used clothing? We would have been happy to just send it to them.” Russian controls of the population grew increasingly brutal as time passed. Those found to be carrying smartphones would lose them – in the best-case scenario. Young men were taken to the interrogation center the Russians set up at the train station and beaten. One young man – who insists that he learned the coordinates of a Russian position in the city completely by accident through a Telegram group – presumably only escaped death because his mother came and begged for his life on her knees. And because a soldier from the Caucasus felt sorry for her. Those who were still on the street after 3 p.m. were at risk of being shot dead. A fate that befell a cyclist and a man who was running to the hospital because his wife had gone into premature labor. A 60-year-old veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan named Alexander Vilinsky was also shot dead because he refused to be driven out of his home by Russian troops.
via spiegel: Liberated from the Russians – A Visit to Trostyanets After the End of the Occupation