Kseniia Levadna, the community leader and Ira Ganzhorn in front of the community centre, June 2024.
Ira Ganzhorn, Humanitarian Aid Officer at Libereco, visited our ‘Windows for Ukraine’ project in Kherson region in June 2024. She tells us about her impressive encounters with people whose homes were destroyed by the Russian war of aggression, and renovated with new windows as part of our project. Read the report by Ira Ganzhorn below.
“In June 2024, I spent several weeks in Ukraine. I was travelling with my colleague Kseniia in the Kherson region in the south of Ukraine, which was under Russian occupation for a long time and still is to some extent. I want to share one of the stories we encountered on our visit.
On the road in formerly occupied area
We pass fortification lines and dug trenches. White ribbons flutter at regular intervals in the trees at the side of the road. They were once red but have now been bleached by the sun. They show us that the area is mined. Demining vehicles cross our path. The tarmac is your best friend and ally here.
We are here to visit one of our projects. We drive to one of the houses where our partners have installed new windows. But even from a distance, we can see that the house no longer exists. It has been destroyed, with just three lonely walls rising from a pile of rubble.
I look questioningly at the rest of the team: Are we in the wrong place? Where are our windows supposed to have been installed? We are greeted by a man about 40 years old. He sees our puzzled faces and tells us his story—why he lives here even though almost everything is destroyed.
The car wreck bears witness to the destruction caused by the Russian attacks.
Precision bomb hits residential building
When the Russian troops invaded Ukraine in February 2022, he was in the city of Kherson, situated about 150 kilometres from the village. Everything happened so quickly that he didn’t have time to return to his parents and get them to safety. The occupation lasted over a year. During that time, he could not get in touch with his mother and father at all. Immediately after the region’s liberation in the late summer of 2023, he made his way to his parents. He found the destroyed house – and two gravestones in front of it.
The main house and a burnt-out garage were completely destroyed. Only two small outbuildings, each consisting of just one room. That’s where our donated windows have been installed. He wants to stay in the village as a last link to his parents and to a happier past.
As we stand in the summer sun and look at the remains of another life, he continues: his parents were killed eleven days before the liberation. A 25-kilogram precision bomb had hit the house. His father was killed instantly, and his mother died three days later from her severe injuries.
Do not forget the victims of war
Neighbours tell us that Russian soldiers came to his parents’ house the day before the attack. They wanted to confiscate the family’s car, now burnt out in the courtyard. The parents refused to give up their car and argued with the soldiers. They then threatened the parents but left after a while, not without a final threat. They are said to have told the couple they would bitterly regret their stubbornness.
A few hours later, the bomb hit the house. Apart from the rubble and the wrecked car, there is nothing left. The last of their personal belongings lie amidst the rubble: a briefcase, a single shoe, a telephone. There is not much left of the parents’ lives.
In the hot summer heat of Kherson, we can do no more than listen and express our sympathy. No words can take away the pain of the son, and no words can bring back those who were killed. We can listen and promise to tell their stories. We will not forget the victims of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
We thank the man for his trust and for sharing his story. He waves it away, saying that his story is one of many and everyone here has something similar to tell. “Knock on the doors, and they will tell you about the horror,” he says as we say goodbye.”
The project is being implemented in cooperation with the Ukrainian organisation AoS and the Swiss association Re-Win. We would like to thank Siemens Caring Hands e.V. for funding the project. Find more information on the windows project in this article.
Only two outbuildings were preserved. These were renovated with new windows as part of our project.
