For 5 Days, the Rashists Took to Belarus All the Stolen Things from Our Stores: Irpin Resident About Life in Occupation

Volodymyr and his wife Nastya and son Nazarchyk have been in Irpin since the beginning of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine and continue to live here to this day, without water, electricity and gas.

“You know, nowhere will be as safe as at home”, explains Volodymyr. – “Of course, we understood that it would not end in a day or even a week, but we decided to stay. Moreover, pensioners who had health problems and could not be evacuated remained in the house, and families with babies remained in the neighboring houses. They needed help”.

According to the man, when the rashists first started bombing them and drove into the “Fortuna-2” residential complex, it was scary, but they did not even hope that they would have to go through real hell before liberating Irpin from the occupiers.

“When they came to us on March 5, we were bombed, it was scary, neighboring houses were damaged, in ours they bombed the switchboard and the entrance, but in general everything was calm. We wrote on the house “Children and pensioners” and our house was not touched, and the rashists lived in neighboring houses, where there were no people because they were evacuated. But when the Ukrainian military began to drive them out of Irpin at the end of March and the rashists began to flee, in the end, as if before death, they bombed so that we barely survived. Mines were flying, there were shelling, all the windows in our house started flying, it was scary. We miraculously survived, because a few minutes before the bombing, we left the apartment in the corridor and took people there. After the end of hostilities, they saw that the windows in the apartment were blown out and the bathroom door was knocked out”, Volodymyr shared.

He notes that the Russians felt very comfortable in the residential complex. “As soon as they came to us, they immediately changed into Ukrainian uniforms and put on yellow headbands. Then they looted shops, cafes, pizzerias and pharmacies. Arranged a time during the war. They walked calmly around the territory with machine guns, sometimes they were sad and they admitted that they did not know what to expect and what to do next – we do not know anything, we are waiting”, – says a resident of Irpin.

But they did not have to be sad for long, the rashists found clothes and shoes and that’s where the fun began. “They immediately changed into civilian clothes and walked around the territory and shouted “Glory to Ukraine”, but we know our residents and hear the accent. And then, for five days, the loot was taken to Belarus from our stores. I do not know that they robbed apartments, but I saw how they take out of the shops to the maximum. They definitely didn’t come to our house, we didn’t have looting”, Volodymyr emphasized.

In addition, a resident of “Fortuna-2” emphasizes that with the rashists who lived in his apartment complex, they were relatively lucky and all survived. “We have received information that women and men in the neighboring complexes went to the rashists for drunkenness, leaked information, and then they were still shot. But I’m not saying that’s one hundred percent true. The main thing is that everyone was alive!”, Volodymyr summed up.

Currently, the family is recovering from the experience and continues to live in their home in the already liberated Irpin. They collect water in a nearby well, cook over a campfire and receive help from volunteers. While Volodymyr and Nastya, together with the residents of the complex, are cleaning up the consequences of the arrival of the Russian world, Nazarchyk is playing in the yard, but not with children toys. He is a real hero for everyone, because in his almost two years he bravely endured life in the occupation of the enemy and continues to smile.

Irpin, which was liberated on March 28, is coming back to life and everything will definitely be Ukraine!