I didn’t expect
I didn’t realize that something like this could happen and on such a scale.
Up until the very last moment, I couldn't believe it.
I thought it was just the usual saber-rattling.
My family and I
we weren’t prepared for what happened.
Dear citizens of Kupyansk,
the events unfolding around our town can’t help but affect us.
Many people are panicking.
Listen to me: do not panic.
We must remain disciplined and level-headed.
Mykola wouldn’t hear of it
leaving and going somewhere else.
We’re veterans of the Donbas war.
We didn't go through all that so that the Russians could capture our town.
From what I understand,
Mykola was waiting for our military to send in reinforcements, troops.
When he realized there would be no reinforcements,
he understood that the town would be overrun.
And he knew he couldn’t count on Mayor Matsehora.
Today, at 7:30 am, the commander of the Russian battalion
called to propose negotiations.
If I declined, the city would be stormed,
and we would suffer the consequences.
I agreed to negotiations in order to avoid death and destruction.
We discussed the actions of the military,
which would include entering the town.
They will ensure order.
People here are modest and hard-working.
They don’t dream about things that are out of reach.
They all think because our town is on the periphery,
they can do whatever they want.
So then someone comes here
and starts singing the praises of the ‘Russian world'.
He believed that the town needed the factory.
I met Mykola during the elections.
I was working in his electoral district, and we met through work.
Later we began to meet and became friends.
Let’s put it that way.
He was so convinced that Ukraine would win
and that we would never allow something like this to happen.
He just couldn’t imagine it..
He was a member of the town council, but he was also a man of the people.
He wasn’t just an unapproachable politician or bureaucrat.
He always said he would never leave Kupyansk.
He didn't like big cities.
Kupyansk was his home.
After the town was surrendered, his spirits dropped.
He understood it was a done deal.
In some town or village, people went out onto the streets.
They confronted the Russians and they retreated.
He dreamed of doing something like that.
The first thing he did was go to his office to get his Ukrainian flag,
so that he could raise it.
He called me and sounded very agitated.
He said, come to the protest.
You have to come — and bring your camera.
People came out of their basements.
Can you imagine what goes on in people's heads
after four days down there?
And then we took to the streets.
300 people came. Women and men.
They were standing around us, with machine guns.
There and there, and with cars back there.
Kupyansk is Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!
No confrontations.
They have weapons and we don’t.
It was a peaceful protest.
We wanted answers.
Why are they here?
They’re demoralized.
They were told they’re heading out on a drill,
and don’t understand what they’re even doing here.
They see they’re not welcome and want to go home.
We still didn't believe that they’d come here to kill Ukrainians.
Tell all the group chats we’re heading down now.
So we came down here.
He went ahead.
When we arrived, the Russian soldiers were standing over in that road.
Suddenly thick smoke.
They’re throwing grenades.
They’re throwing grenades at peaceful citizens.
They don't want to talk peacefully,
they don’t want to leave our country in peace.
When the smoke cleared, we realized that Mykola was gone.
You’d better leave, they’ll shoot.
They knew if they took Masliy, people would calm down.
And that’s what happened.
We demand to have a video broadcast
in the media that proves that Mykola Masliy is alive.
What are we going to do about the Russians?
Where were you these past four days?
The recruiting office was closed.
Lots of people wanted to fight, but there was no place for us to enlist.
So? I went there too.
They didn’t give us any weapons either, not a single machine gun.
I had to sit alone in the town hall, with only a few women.
I was there morning, noon and night.
And I had to go to the Russians alone.
Just one woman came with me.
This is our ‘shop’.
The district administration was on the ground floor.
The town hall was in the two floors above that.
All destroyed.
This was my office.
The day Kupyansk was occupied,
and the mayor announced that Russian troops would enter the town,
he was sitting here in his office.
The desk was over there, where he recorded that video.
I made this decision and the responsibility here is mine.
That was his mistake.
When he recorded the video, we were all at work.
We didn’t work for him or for the Russians or for anyone,
the way some people say now: You guys from the town administration,
why didn’t you just quit and leave?
Well what about the people?
Life went on.
People would come here in tears, asking for help.
They had no money.
They needed medical care.
It had all collapsed, everything had collapsed.
There was no collaboration here.
There were no Russians here, walking around in uniform.
We followed Ukrainian law.
It was all Ukrainian.
I don't want to show my face.
I’m afraid the Russians might come back.
On the first day of the occupation my boss came and said:
All right, people, from now on we speak Russian and work for Russia.
I didn't agree.
I said I won't work for them, and I won't take their humanitarian aid.
He said: that won’t go well for you.
The people of Kupyansk are brave and well-organized.
We help each other.
I hope only good things lie ahead for us.
Then the searches began.
They came at six and smashed in the door.
From the window I saw two buses arrive, and soldiers get out of them.
My child was panicking. He shouted, don’t take my mother!
I went out and a soldier looked at my ID and said, Oh, Cheremskyy, let’s go.
They aren't human.
They told my son: Your mother won't come back.
It’s over.
They locked me in a solitary cell.
Cell number 9.
They took me to a basement to interrogate me.
Where are your military veterans hiding?
I heard them brutally beating one of our Donbas veterans.
And my mind started to race.
Thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking: What’s going to happen?
I tried to talk to them calmly.
At first, they seemed to understand.
Then one man came in, clearly a pretty sorry mind.
He said: Why are you talking to her?
Beat her!
That’s when it became really brutal.
They hit me, kicked me, and used electric shocks.
When the occupiers entered a settlement,
they first looked for buildings that could serve as their headquarters
and as detention facilities and torture chambers.
The biggest torture chamber was in the police headquarters.
It was well-suited to jailing people.
That’s why most prisoners were held here.
A cell built for two people held six or eight prisoners.
The most frightening person in prison is you.
Because you start terrifying yourself with your own thoughts.
The inmates were given a printout of the Russian national anthem
and patriotic songs from the Soviet era.
They had to learn them by heart and sing them.
They interrogated me and beat me.
And they filmed me — to coerce me.
That’s how they recruited me.
They said there was no point in trying to escape
and that I had to come to them every three days
to tell them everything I’d heard — about weapons, or organized groups.
I didn’t betray anyone.
I knew who had fled town.
So I just gave them the names of people
who I was certain had already left.
After the protest ended, I came here.
The house where he lived with his family.
Closed.
Hello my friend.
So many emotions.
We went to the checkpoint where they’d taken him,
and asked if we could hand over some personal items and medication for him.
They said, yes, you can bring them tomorrow.
But when we came back with his things the next day,
they didn’t take anything and said he’d already been transferred.
Mykola’s account books.
I waited for him for one week.
I hoped he’d turn up.
Then I left.
I taught computer science and technology
which was something like industrial arts
as well as geography and electronics.
The Russians issued directives, but they didn't enforce them.
If you remained silent, you could continue doing what you’d always done.
There was no curriculum.
I used my old notes, and my exams were all in Ukrainian.
I sat in class with the kids and taught them innocent things like:
Where is the world’s biggest waterfall?
Things like that.
I asked the students: What will we speak in class — Russian or Ukrainian?
They said, Ukrainian.
We won’t tell anyone.
Isn’t it lovely?
Lower the back seat of the car.
We came to Kupyansk when they first started allowing people in.
We didn't know anyone.
One box of rice for everyone?
Yes, one each.
Sometime later we met Liudmyla
and started to become more familiar with the place.
Let’s go.
Those are my guys coming, the volunteers.
Liudmyla, we’ll drive to Kivsharivka.
We brought a stove and food.
We’re going to see Father Leonid.
Wear a hat!
Of course, the hat’s the most important thing.
Dear people in Kharkiv, dear soldiers.
The Russian fascists are driving in your direction.
Meet them.
Bomb them.
Destroy them.
We know that Ukraine will win.
Our soldiers are invincible.
Victory is ours.
So go ahead, Russians, they’re expecting you.
What happened to you?
The air raid sirens at 7 in the morning.
I’d gone out to buy milk.
I started running.
My daughter was home, on the fourth floor.
I was hurrying.
It was snowing and I slipped.
Now I'm in a cast.
We agreed to meet for another protest, but nobody came.
That’s when I realized there would be no more protests.
So, we began distributing humanitarian aid.
Two guys knocked on my door.
We sat down and watched each other carefully for a long time,
taking stock.
When we saw that we could trust each other, we began.
I wrote to people, who then sent us aid.
We turned off the heat.
Some of the plants are wilting.
The jars of tinned meat had written on them: Glory to Ukraine,
glory to the armed forces.
Imagine if they’d seen one of them.
We were like partisans.
For us, it was a message that we brought to people,
so they could hear the voice of Ukraine
and know they were not forgotten.
That we were united.
This was important to us.
We were waiting for our soldiers to arrive.
We were already tired.
Every day we wondered when they would come.
But then we realized that there were already a lot of Russian soldiers,
and that this would become a slaughterhouse.
My husband said, take our daughter and bring yourselves to safety.
Those who give shelter to travellers,
the refugees who fled those terrible places
where life isn't possible anymore.
Who have no money and sometimes no identity documents.
Those who provide them with shelter will see the kingdom of God.
Let us hope that we still have the desire for goodness,
that we will not only survive but prevail.
Glory to Jesus Christ.
May God be with us.
The occupation was difficult, morally difficult.
You had to remember who you were.
If any of them had come to our service and heard how we pray for our army
we knew what would have happened to us.
I had faith in our believers.
On holidays like Pentecost, though, more people attended.
But nobody gave us away.
Can you imagine!
There was a group of people
who continued to fight and attended church services.
Two months after the war began, I asked: Is there something I can do?
Let’s do something, let’s fight.
And we founded a small group of partisans.
Every week after the service we met and planned our operations.
Unfortunately,
quite a few people here believed that Russia would bring peace.
I’d estimate that 25 or 30% were pro-Russian.
This suburb is a factory housing estate.
When the factory was built,
many workers moved here from across the Soviet Union.
What could we do?
There were men with machine guns on the streets.
So we used what we had.
I had a printer.
We started with three posters.
Then ten, and so forth.
We put up the first poster here.
It’s hard to glue a poster onto this surface.
So we used tape.
You had to be careful not to give yourself away.
You had to behave like everyone else.
Like the people who put up ads to sell their cars.
You had to act like you weren’t doing anything illegal.
Walk over casually, stick your poster to the wall, and leave, nice and cool.
So that nobody would suspect anything.
Passing on the coordinates of Russian troops was very important.
Important to the Kharkiv offensive.
God is my witness; I did what I could.
I can’t say what difference I made.
But in wartime, every little thing you do
is like a raindrop feeding into a waterfall.
I also had pro-Russian classmates.
One of them, a year younger than me,
became known as a pro-Russian activist.
He tore down Ukrainian flags.
You have to understand: propaganda is a powerful thing.
The youth in the Kharkiv region destroy the symbols of Nazi Ukraine.
They don’t want to see them in their cities anymore.
When I was in high school, we had to sing the national anthem.
A kind of lofty patriotism.
We were told: put your hand on your heart and sing.
And many did sing.
But when war came, somehow they weren’t all that patriotic anymore.
Do you know the national anthem?
Of course.
Let’s go. Come on.
Here you go.
They handed this out.
To brainwash the locals.
It was in May.
I tried to call my family.
The connection was terrible.
It was evening and I went out to try to get better reception.
I was arrested.
Supposedly for breaking the curfew.
Their main question was: Tell us.
I said: Tell you what?
They said: Everything you remember.
And they would use ? how should I put it ? unlawful methods.
A bag over your head.
Tape around your hands and legs.
A hood, with more tape on top.
They would force you into position.
Two cables, and then it would begin.
Electric shocks and beatings.
The head of the provisional civil-military administration
for the Kharkiv region,
under the control of the Russian armed forces, was announced.
By unanimous vote,
the assembly appointed Vitaly Konstantinovich Ganchev
head of the provisional administration.
The educational system is recovering.
With the help of the Russian Federation our educational system
will rise from its knees, from the place where it languished
under the Ukrainians.
There was still no curriculum.
But they brought in their schoolbooks.
Hot off the press, as if they’d hurriedly cobbled something together.
I opened a book for the eighth grade.
Took one look and said, I won’t teach this.
In the third paragraph it said: On February 21,
Putin signed the decree to recognize
the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Was I going to teach that?
No. That’s how my teaching job ended.
I didn't watch their TV, or listen to their radio.
I didn't speak to them.
That’s why my mind wasn't corrupted.
But there were also people like my neighbor.
She had a son fighting in the Ukrainian army.
Still one day she came to me and said,
I’m going to be a teacher in a Russian school.
I said: How can you?
What about your son? She said,
you have to understand that Russia will be here forever.
There’s nothing we can do; we have to come to terms with it.
Go inside, save yourselves, hide!
Up to the very last moment, until I could see Ukrainian soldiers
with my own eyes, I didn't believe that we would be liberated.
During the occupation, we were also shelled.
But the Ukrainian army took very careful aim.
They didn’t even rattle our windows.
Since the liberation, Russia has been shelling us like crazy.
We’ve never had a quiet day.
It’s easy to be a hero in a movie.
But in real life, it’s far more complicated and very frightening.
People had to survive.
For people who fled, it’s easy to judge and accuse.
After all, they left it all behind.
They should try to live the way people here had to live,
feel the fear we felt every day.
Not everyone can handle it.
Life has shown us who is who.
We’ve opened about 200 criminal cases linked to collaboration
in the Kupyansk district.
And if there’s anyone that the law enforcement agencies may have missed,
they should know that their turn will come.
I’m not happy.
I’m not happy about a lot of things.
Some people remained in their posts during the occupation.
They worked for those who occupied our land,
killed our people, locked them up and humiliated them.
And now those same people are back working for the Ukrainian state.
We’re very short staffed.
We’re especially short on specialists,
people qualified to do the work that we need.
Unfortunately the refugees haven’t returned yet.
I help distribute food; I help load it in order to help the Ukrainians.
When the Ukrainian army arrived, I knew there would be questions for me.
But I was shocked at what happened.
My friend came and he brought another friend of ours.
They all were also friends of Mykola.
But they also brought a soldier with them, a beefy guy.
And he just started beating me with no explanation.
He hit me in the face and in the eye.
You’re spineless, he said.
If you couldn't manage to evacuate, you should have shot yourself.
It’s very unpleasant when the people you’ve been waiting for
all this time beat you.
I’d always thought I had courage.
But during the occupation,
I realized how frightening fear itself can be.
I’m from Donbas, from the city of Horlivka.
When war started there in 2014, I left for the Kharkiv region.
And now I had to flee again.
But this time it’s much more difficult than it was then.
There’s too much connected to this war.
Mykola’s kidnapping.
This war is so ... so much
so much more painful.