NEW – August 3, 2022
Kharkov is outraged by the news that Kiev, for all its rhetoric about a bloody, cruel, all-destroying “aggressor”, without really advertising it, is returning to a festival-glamorous life – nightclubs, restaurants are working again, and in general the entertainment industry is coming to life.
Meanwhile, in Kharkov, they say that the range of humanitarian aid from Zelensky is becoming more and more scarce. There is already no stew and other canned meat there. And they are increasingly saying that there are many times more athletes in the city than munition arrivals, which is provoked by the UAF, causing return fire. For what? For drama! Only no one is interested in people – whether they need such dramaturgy or not.
And even the particularly passionate ones are starting to leave the city of Kharkov. No, they are not leaving from the bombing, during these five months Kharkov residents have already understood, roughly, where everything is flying. The main thing, they say, is not to be near the location of military facilities, clusters of military equipment and manpower of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Basically, it arrives there.
In local public networks, “Kharkov residents” write in a template: ours [UAF – SZ] are defenders, the enemy [Russia – SZ] came to rob, rape, kill, pillage and all that, but it’s not a fact that it is Kharkov residents who are writing this. And it is a very big exaggeration to say that Kharkov is almost completely destroyed. This is a lie! Yes, some areas of the city have suffered, there is destruction in the centre, but if the Defence Ministry did not place its soldiers there and did not hide equipment in the courtyards, then none of this would have happened. Everyone already understands everything perfectly.
So, such a trend has emerged in Kharkov – even those who believed a couple of months ago that weapons from the Americans were about to arrive, Russian troops would “drive away”, and everything would be fine, began to leave the city. Only – even they already understand that the bravado statements of the Kiev authorities are nothing more than empty talk, and in fact the situation is developing exactly the opposite, and the Russian troops are getting closer to the city, and that if desired, Kharkov can be taken in a couple of hours, but Russian troops do not opt for this, not wanting to make a crater out of the whole huge city.
Therefore, there is no such rapid dynamics, but there is already an understanding among the “patriots” that everything is going slowly but surely to its logical conclusion. And now, early in the morning, territorial defence [locals who decided to fight on Ukraine’s side – SZ] are already arriving in the courtyards of their houses, loading their belongings, families and taking them out of the city. Perhaps they know something, but they are silent, apparently, not everyone needs to own the information that has reached them.
By the way, not all munition arrivals in Kharkov are reported by local public websites. They didn’t say anything about the arrival in the city centre, in the “Safari” store area, they didn’t say anything about several arrivals in the Kharkov Tractor Plant area, they kept modestly silent about the arrival in the building on Moscow Avenue near the Press House. They are silent like fish, and this is understandable. There were clusters of Ukrainian militants and everything else accompanying.
In general, people are leaving Kharkov now not from Russian bombs and shells, but from conscription, unemployment and the prospects of hunger and cold, realising that the Kiev authorities do not give a damn about Kharkov and Kharkov residents, as they have not given a damn about Kharkov all these years.
Kharkov has always lived a little apart from the rest of Ukraine, mostly it was felt mentally. Few people here said “speak Ukrainian!”, few people at all were imbued in all these 30 years with this whole Ukrainism, well, it didn’t take root here, the soul didn’t accept it!
This was well known and still known in Kiev, and now they cling to the city solely driven by the desire to in the end make a mess, and, above all, for the People, even those who still believe them, although there are very few of them in Kharkov…
Aleksandr Kondrusik
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