The Russians Might Have Expected a Warm Welcome. Instead the Mayor Labeled Them ‘Occupiers.’

The 33-year-old mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fyodorov, encouraged defiance. Then he was arrested, and hasn’t been heard from since.​

By Marc Santora and Neil MacFarquhar @NYTimes.com, March 12, 2022

LVIV, Ukraine — Ivan Fyodorov, as his name suggests, is an ethnic Russian in a southern Ukrainian city where Russian is commonly spoken and where cultural and familial ties to the motherland run deep.

That would seem to make Mr. Fyodorov, the mayor of Melitopol, just the kind of person to welcome conquering Russian soldiers with open arms and flowers.

Instead, he labeled them “occupiers.”

On Friday evening, those Russian soldiers threw a bag over Mr. Fyodorov’s head and dragged him from his government office, Ukrainian officials said. Security camera footage from Melitopol’s Victory Square appears to show someone being escorted out of a government building by soldiers, but The Times could not verify the identity of the people in the video.

The Russian news agency Tass reported on Saturday that the prosecutors office in Luhansk, one of the breakaway areas recognized by Moscow, was preparing terrorism charges against Mr. Fyodorov, accusing him of raising money of the far right group Right Sector.

On Saturday, hundreds of his townspeople poured out into the streets in an expression of outrage and defiance, despite the presence of Russian troops.

“Return the mayor!” they shouted, witnesses said and videos showed. “Free the mayor!”

Nearly as soon as people gathered, the Russians moved to shut them down, briefly detaining one woman who they said had organized the demonstration, according to two witnesses and the woman’s Facebook account.[....]

American journalist killed in Ukraine 

Twitter World news, 2 hours ago, tweets at link

American photographer and filmmaker Brent Renaud was shot and killed in Irpin, Ukraine, on Sunday, medics and witnesses told AFP. Another journalist was injured in the same attack in the northwest suburb of Kyiv, according to multiple news outlets. Kyiv police attributed the attack to Russian forces. Russia has not yet commented on this incident. The New York Times deputy managing editor, Cliff Levy, shared a statement from the paper that specified Renaud was not on assignment for The Times at the time of his death. It is not clear what outlet the journalists were working for.

correspondent for The Guardian in Kyiv -

Purported shelling 10 KM from the Polish border!!!  Seth Abramson is correct to point out what that means -

Antonio Garcia Martinez obviously made it into Ukraine, he's currently in Lviv and obviously plans on reporting different angles from everyone else

Fox News'  State Dept. correspondent over there has been wounded and hospitalized

how hate grows, up close and personal:

EXTREMELY interesting claim but I haven't seen proof yet:

Russia is destroying Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city.

@ NYTimes.com, 2 hours ago, BY Allison McCann, Lazaro Gamio, Denise Lu, Pablo Robles and Dan Bilefsky

CAPTIONS & MORE PHOTOS AT LINK

Famed for its poets, artists, writers and eye-popping architecture, Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, has long occupied an important place in the collective imaginations of both Ukrainians and Russians. These days, however, it is notable for something else: its searing scenes of destruction.

Closer to Russia than any other large Ukrainian city, Kharkiv has loomed large in President Vladimir V. Putin’s view of Ukraine as no more than an appendage of Russia unjustly snatched away by the machinations of foreigners and misguided Ukrainian nationalists.

During and after World War I, the city served as the first capital of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, a largely Moscow-controlled entity. Most Kharkiv residents are Russian speakers, and many are ethnic Russians [....]

Unable to take control of the city, Russia has been destroying it in a relentless barrage. Evoking memories of Syria and Chechnya, Russia has been terrorizing the city’s inhabitants with overwhelming and indiscriminate force. It is following a similar plan in other Ukrainian cities, such as Mariupol and Mykolaiv.

“The most horrible thing was the whistle of jets. I will remember them all my life,” said Mr. Kuzubov, who has since fled Kharkiv, along with hundreds of thousands of others.

The city is full of historic monuments, and home to more than two dozen universities and some 200,000 students and professors. At least 500 civilians have been killed, according to the city’s emergency services agency. The true number is likely higher, and rescue workers continue to dig through the rubble.

The scenes of destruction — a school, a mall, a tram depot, Kharkiv regional administration building, Kharkiv National University’s main building — are everywhere.[....]

UH OH some missiles near Lviv now, where it was thought to be safe:

and in Irpin:

Russian soldiers took their city, then they took their homes.

As Russian forces pushed toward Kyiv, they stormed an apartment complex in a nearby suburb and held residents hostage. Some of it was caught on camera

54 minutes ago by Brenna Smith and Masha Froliak NYTimes.com WITH LOTS OF VIDEOS/PHOTOS

KYIV, Ukraine — For days, Roman Naumenko and his neighbors at the Pokrovsky apartment complex outside Kyiv had been watching from a few short miles away as Russian forces tried to take over a nearby airport.

“I saw helicopters that were firing, coming one after the other,” he said. “It was a huge shock. I couldn’t believe it was real.”

Residents would stand outside their buildings filming the destruction with their cellphones.

Each day, Russian forces drew closer and closer to the apartment complex. On March 3, one of the buildings was directly hit by a missile. More than 150 families were still in the 14-building residential complex at the time, a building manager told The New York Times.

And then, later that same day, troops were literally at Mr. Naumenko’s doorstep.

“We saw the Russian infantry on the security camera of our building,” he said. “From that moment, the Russians stayed.”

They made around 200 residents stay too, holding many of them hostage in the basements of their own buildings, forcing them to hand over their phones and taking over their apartments. Others were able to avoid detection but still were essentially prisoners in their own homes as Russian forces moved into the buildings, which had housed 560 families, and took up sniping positions.

The Times interviewed seven residents of the Pokrovsky apartment complex in the town of Hostomel, about 10 miles northwest of Kyiv. All experienced the assault and the captivity firsthand before finding ways to flee. Using their accounts, along with footage from security cameras and cellphones, The Times was able to piece together what it looked and felt like as Russian forces closed in.

“It was really scary,” said Lesya Borodyuk, a 49-year-old resident, tearing up at one point as she spoke. “I wrote to my daughter. I was saying goodbye to her. I told her that probably we will be bombed now.”

Outside in the parking lot, security cameras showed at least a dozen Russian troops and infantry fighting vehicles. Soldiers shuttled heavy machine guns and forced a man inside a building at gunpoint.

Ksenia, who asked to be identified only by her first name, watched with her husband and children from their second-floor window as Russian forces arrived at their building.

“We didn’t know what could happen to us,” she said. “It was just a total state of fear.”

One group of soldiers used rifles to smash open the front door of an apartment building. Once inside, they entered the elevator and destroyed its security cameras. In some buildings, soldiers went floor by floor tearing doors off hinges and raiding apartments, residents said.

Within a few hours, according to the seven residents The Times spoke to, Russian soldiers had seized the entire complex and trapped close to 200 civilians inside various buildings.

“People were kicked out of the apartments,” said Elena Anishchenko, who was planning to celebrate her 33th birthday with neighbors the day the soldiers arrived. “They didn’t ask anyone anything, they would just tell them to go to the basement.”

Many of the residents had their phones and laptops confiscated or destroyed.

“They told us — ‘Don’t be mad at us, but if we find your phone, you will be shot on the spot,’” Ms. Anishchenko said.

Cut off from the outside world, Ms. Anishchenko said she couldn’t read the news or speak to her family.

Some residents like Ksenia were able to remain in their homes — perhaps because she had an infant.

Others went unnoticed. Mr. Naumenko and his wife hid on the seventh floor of their building. He still had his phone, which he would turn on once a day to text his family that he was still alive.

Families worry: ‘I cannot get in touch.’

Friends and relatives of those trapped in Pokrovsky were in agony. In chat groups and via text messages, they had seen clips and screen shots of Russian soldiers as they seized the complex. Then the messages from their loved ones just stopped.

Iryna Khomyakova, a resident’s daughter, saw the closed-circuit television footage of the soldiers entering the elevator. Worried, she called her mother, who said that Russian soldiers had just entered the building and that she was forced with others into the basement.

“My mom’s phone died,” she said on March 9, and she hadn’t heard from her in days.

Hanna Yaremchuk told The Times via text message that she was out of touch with her father for days, adding that he was also being held in a basement. She wondered: “Is he alive at all? !!! I do not know!”

Living with soldiers

For those being detained, the ability to move around depended on the guards.

Ms. Borodyuk and others in her basement were permitted to go to their apartments to get food and warm clothes to help withstand the cold of the brick basement. Neighbors were permitted to cook together and intermingle.

The Russians guarding Ms. Anishchenko’s basement were more strict. They allowed the residents only short, supervised visits to their apartments to get food and supplies for everyone.

“People were panicking,” Ms. Anishchenko said, “Everyone was past their breaking point.”

Eventually, a hundred or more soldiers were patrolling outside the buildings, and some were even living in the apartments.

On the seventh floor, Mr. Naumenko and his wife continued to evade detection. Recent shelling in the area had blown out their windows and the temperature had dropped below freezing. With no electricity, they improvised ways to cook, lighting oil in a saucer to warm up food and using a candle to heat a can of water. Without heat in the building, they slept fully dressed and wearing jackets.

In Ksenia’s apartment, each day involved securing enough food to feed her children and surviving to the next morning. Her new life was a far cry from what she envisioned.

“We were waiting for this apartment for four years,” Ksenia said. “We invested in the renovation. But even this doesn’t matter now.”

'We will liberate you from Nazis’

Outside, the fighting was relentless.

“We got used to the sounds of shooting and we learned to tell one from the other,” Mr. Naumenko said. “Whether it was far or close. Whether it was going into our building or above the building. We could hear that.”

Inside the apartment complex, the soldiers were telling their prisoners that Ukraine was about to be liberated, Ms. Anishchenko said.

Ms. Borodyuk recalled a more senior Russian officer attempting to comfort a girl in the basement where they were detained. “He said: ‘My daughter is 8 years old too. I love her very much. I miss her. Don’t be afraid, little girl, we will liberate you from Nazis.’”

Ms. Borodyuk said some of the younger Russian troops didn’t even know why they were in Ukraine. When captives asked one soldier why he was here, he replied, weeping: “Where am I? What should I do?”

Evacuated by chance

On March 9, Russia and Ukraine agreed to briefly establish several humanitarian corridors to allow civilians safe passage out of conflict areas. But the Russian soldiers at Pokrovsky failed to inform their prisoners.

Ms. Anishchenko heard by chance. During a supervised food visit to her apartment, she saw a convoy moving with white flags from the window and asked a Russian soldier what was happening. He told her there was a 72-hour no-strike corridor in place. She and some of her neighbors packed a bag and ran.

On their way out, the scene was grim. “We saw dead bodies laying on the ground,” she said. “We saw crashed and burned cars with bodies inside.”

Mr. Naumenko turned his phone on and saw information in a WhatsApp group about the humanitarian corridor evacuation. He and his wife quickly gathered their things.

While leaving the complex, a soldier warned them that he would not shoot him, but those patrolling elsewhere might.

They fled anyway and escaped unharmed — along with all the other residents The Times spoke with. Naumenko is now in Kyiv, where he plans to stay — and perhaps fight.

“The things I saw in Hostomel were a nightmare. I don’t want this to come here,” he said.

Videos edited by Dmitriy Khavin.

 

Brenna Smith is a Visual Investigations Fellow with the Times video team. @brenna__smith

Masha Froliak is a researcher and translator working with the Visual Investigations team at The Times.  

MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — The Russians were hunting us down. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in.

We were the only international journalists left in the Ukrainian city, and we had been documenting its siege by Russian troops for more than two weeks. We were reporting inside the hospital when gunmen began stalking the corridors. Surgeons gave us white scrubs to wear as camouflage.

Suddenly at dawn, a dozen soldiers burst in: “Where are the journalists, for fuck’s sake?”

I looked at their armbands, blue for Ukraine, and tried to calculate the odds that they were Russians in disguise. I stepped forward to identify myself. “We’re here to get you out,” they said.

The walls of the surgery shook from artillery and machine gun fire outside, and it seemed safer to stay inside. But the Ukrainian soldiers were under orders to take us with them [....]

continued - PHOTOS, LOTS

If true, WHOA!!

phone video

and

edit to add:

holy shit look at the aftermath of this airstrike!

Reports of sexual violence involving Russian soldiers are multiplying, Ukrainian officials say.

(I'm reminded when I saw Fauci say in 2020 that he hopes humans never start shaking hands again. Guess he doesn't get that wish!)