“They shot, they shot, but what about” – Kommersant

On Tuesday evening, the Ministry of Defense announced the liquidation of the Ukrainian sabotage group, which had penetrated the territory of the Graivoronsky district of the Belgorod region the day before. A few hours before that, a Kommersant correspondent visited Graivoron Alexander Chernykh.

The road from Belgorod to Grayvoron takes only an hour and a half by car. There are no special defensive fortifications to be seen along the way, except perhaps for the famous “notch line” of concrete pyramids. Sometimes on the track there are light military vehicles with soldiers on the armor. We make a short stop in one border village to buy water. On the counter is a cardboard box with the inscription “Basket of goodness. Help the soldiers. Together – we are force!” A tired guy in military uniform with chevrons “Belgorod Region” and “Preobrazhensky Regiment” passes to the checkout line. He buys all the energy drinks that were in the fridge.

The first checkpoint – traffic cops in bulletproof vests and helmets check every car. They look at documents, look into the salon and ask to open the trunk – and then let them through. A few kilometers later, already very close to Grayvoron, the situation is reversed: all the “civilian” cars are wrapped up at the checkpoint. “An anti-terrorist operation is underway in the region, further passage is closed,” the border guard mumbles. “It is not known when they will open. Wait here if you like.” The asphalt on the road next to him is badly peeled off – clearly fresh traces of caterpillar vehicles.

Two dozen cars were piled up on the roadsides near the checkpoint. People are trying to get through to relatives who have remained in the city: “The key is under the brick, to the left of the door. Be sure to feed the chickens … ”But most do not want to talk to journalists. “Yesterday? Yesterday, at nine in the morning, I heard…” the woman begins to tell. But her husband abruptly cuts her off: “Stop talking with your tongue. We are this person (correspondent.— “b”) is seen for the first time. Let the competent authorities give him information.”

“No-no-no, I won’t say anything,” a large elderly man twirls the keys in his hands. Like the poster says, “Don’t talk!” And if you want my opinion on the situation – well, it’s a complete asshole, that’s what it is. And how else to say if the enemy’s DRG came right into the city to us.

On the side of the road, a gray-haired grandfather smokes non-stop.

“I’m from Grayvoron, yes. Was there yesterday, yes. They shot somewhere, I call my brother in the village, I say: they are shooting hard today. He says: wait, now I will come, I will take you away. Well, I spent the night with them, but now I want to go back home.

– Isn’t it scary?

– Yes, what to be afraid of. It was yesterday, it was the day before yesterday, and it was a week ago, and a month… This is how we live here. It’s just stupidity, that’s all.

On the other side of the road, two men are talking.

– They shot, they shot, but how. They started right in the morning,” one of them willingly answers. More planes flew, helicopters …

– I personally saw the plane, very close, – adds his friend. – He flew low, low, right above the houses. And then, already further, I shot these, well, heat traps.

— And how did you leave? Was there an evacuation?

– By evening, the soldiers began to go home. They just knocked on the gate and warned that it was better to evacuate. They said that if there was nowhere, that is, a bus, they would take them to Stary Oskol and place them somewhere. Well, I left on my own, spent the night with friends, and now I can’t return.

– And what do you think about this situation?

“What is there to think about,” the first man grins. “For what they fought, they ran into that. And I won’t tell you anything more.

– For “thinking” is now discredited, – adds the second. – Up to ten years in prison. So I don’t “think” anything.

Waiting is boring; at about 10:00 we leave the checkpoint. We turn onto one of the parallel roads, turn around and again go towards Grayvoron. Ten minutes, fifteen – for some reason there are no roadblocks. And suddenly we skip past the Grayvoron sign – we don’t even have time to photograph it.

The city is small – the main street can be driven in ten minutes. Very quiet. Shops, pharmacies, nail salons are all closed. There are no passers-by on the streets – only a few people stand in the palisade of a private house and look suspiciously at our car. We drive past the hospital – the windows of the first floors are covered with white sandbags.

At the crossroads of Taran and Sverdlov streets, the silence is broken by an unpleasant squeal – this is the alarm yelling at the Magnit. There was clearly an “arrival” here – a small funnel on the asphalt, traces of fragments all around. The near windows are broken, the far ones are covered with cracks. Behind them is an advertising poster “Let’s be friends with families.” Across the road is a private house with a destroyed roof. I catch myself thinking that I have already seen all this – in Donetsk.

We stop to take pictures of the shop. A few minutes later, at 10:20, there is a loud explosion – judging by the sound, just a couple of blocks away from us. At 10:30 there is another explosion, and then a police car pulls up. Employees in bulletproof vests and helmets carefully check documents, ignoring questions about the situation in the city. Another explosion is heard – and the policeman offers to move under the visor of the store. He nods at the shell holes. “See? Now imagine what will happen to your body.

After checking, the employees “strongly recommend” to leave Grayvoron – and “escort” our car to the same checkpoint. On the way, we notice a school building with broken windows; there is a strong smell of burning near another administrative building. Already outside the city at 10:47 we hear the unpleasant whistle of a mine and a close explosion.

There were noticeably fewer cars near the checkpoint. The driver of one of them approaches us: “Guys, are you from Grayvoron? How to get there? “That’s the way it is. But they are shooting now.” He brushes it off: “You will tell me more. We’ve been shooting here for a year now.” I ask him what he thinks about it. The man silently points to the sticker on the car: “Z – we do not leave our own.” And then he says: “In general, I would like all these *** bosses to be evicted from Moscow – and let them live with us in Grayvoron, in Glotov, in Kozinka. Let them live like we do for at least a year.”

He turns around and leaves. Four ambulances drive one after the other to the checkpoint, followed by several black jeeps with the letter Z. A couple of minutes later, a military helicopter flies in the same direction.

Some of the evacuees were taken more than a hundred kilometers from Grayvoron to the city of Gubkin. Approximately 50 people were accommodated in the Ruda Hotel. A group of volunteers is on duty at its door – these are students of the local branch of BSTU. Shukhov. One is holding a brand new litter box and a bag of dry food. “The guys are here all day — they set up a TV for someone, they help someone with Wi-Fi, they found a tray for someone. They play with children while their parents communicate with the police. They found out that people were missing something – they chipped in, bought it, quickly brought it in, – says Dmitry Prochakovsky, head of the youth policy department of the city administration; he himself is not much older than the volunteers. — After all, very different people came. Someone was ready for anything, packed a suitcase in advance. And others have nothing, they evacuated in a T-shirt and shorts. The elderly arrived, families with three children arrived, with animals. We are trying to quickly solve their problems – Belgorod residents should help each other.” Later, he shares an observation that clearly haunts him: “You know, these people told me that they can’t even believe that everything is so calm in Gubkin. It seems that there is only one region … But they constantly have shelling there, they constantly hear it all – and in Gubkin there is such silence. They are directly surprised – they say as if they came abroad.

We go along the hotel corridor. Several doors are open where the police are talking to the evacuees. “We are just interrogating, collecting evidence – what they saw, what they heard,” one of them explained to a Kommersant correspondent. “Honestly, I have not heard anything special from anyone yet. The arrivals were heard, the shooting was heard – but no one saw the saboteurs themselves. Maybe my colleagues were more fortunate, but this is how it is with me. ”

One of the rooms really housed a family with a cat. His name is Fluff.

At 18:00 guests are called for dinner. I sit down with a group of pensioners and ask Alexandra Mikhailovna, a grandmother in a bright purple jacket. A beautiful colorful scarf is neatly tied around her head. Alexandra Mikhailovna speaks very slowly in a mixture of Russian and Ukrainian:

– I’m from Novostroevka-second, Graivoronovsky district. Yak times pid the very border. The garden ends at me – after three hundred meters the border. Our border guards always took water from us. Since the first day, since February 24, we have been helping them… Such good guys. They came today, they said – we need to evacuate. So I had to tick. The bus came and picked us up. And they cried, and it’s a pity to leave the house, but they did,” Alexandra Mikhailovna continues. “Although they flew in here before, and hit the houses, and the windows were all broken …

“I got into my house on March 15,” a younger woman nods. “My grandson and I were at home. It’s scary, of course … I had to shift the roof, insert windows. Well, the administration did everything as expected …

“But today it was scary, scary!” It was more than an hour, – continues Alexandra Mikhailovna. – The neighbors grunted: “Lie down, near us!” The stench of gooseberries fell into the ears, oh-oh-oh, I thought that was it, the end. It was scary…

— Vaughns are flying right overhead, flying, whistling… — another neighbor sighs. And they fell into the landing, and the gardens were broken …

I ask women where they come from.

“I was born in Second Novostroevka,” Alexandra Mikhailovna replies firmly. “I got married in Second, lived all my life in Second. I’m three years old toy caught the war…

– And I’m from Kalmykia, – says a neighbor. – I graduated from a technical school – and was sent to the Kharkov region. And she lived there all her life, in the eighth year she only came here.

– Do you communicate with someone from there now?

“I have a relative there,” the woman says reluctantly.

“And what does she tell you?”

“Sho, no good.

– What will she say? – a mustachioed pensioner suddenly wedged into the conversation. – There was one country once. And they became enemies. That’s all.

Alexander Chernykh, Belgorod-Grayvoron