The Sociologist Denys Kobzin lives in the second city of Ukraine, pounded for several days by Russian bombing. In an interview with the “world”, he describes his incredulity and that of these fellow citizens in the face of war.
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The second city of Ukraine, Kharkiv (East), with a majority of Russian-speaking, is the target of intense bombings for several days. Denys Kobzin is a recognized sociologist from this metropolis, located 40 km from Russia. In a telephone interview with the world, this scholarly and weighted man, today refugee in the basement of an old house, describes how much his city has changed from face since the beginning of the Russian invasion, February 24.
What does Kharkiv look like today?
It’s a horror. The city continues to be systematically destroyed. Residential areas where hundreds of thousands of people live are constantly bombarded. This morning, a Grad missile struck civilians who queued to buy food. I can not believe it happens here.
The city center is almost ruined, but the Russians continue their bombing. As I speak to you, their planes hit the prosecutor’s building and the TV tower. Many of our heritage buildings, built more than a hundred years ago and survived Nazi bombs in the 1940s, no longer exist. Nobody expected that we come to an open and systematic destruction of the city as Stalingrad were [in the USSR] or Alep [in Syria]. People can not leave their shelters to buy safe bread and can not sleep anymore.
How do the proctions react?
So many people are shocked. They can not believe what is happening. For them, Putin’s actions fall under madness, they do not see the logic. They call their relatives in Russia, who repeat them what the Russian propaganda says: “The Ukrainians are between them: Nazis kill Nazis.”
For the elderly who experienced the USSR and believed in the stories about the “fraternity of nations”, it is particularly painful. Many citizens of Kharkiv themselves have arrived from Russia in the Soviet era. Today, they feel very bad. For them, in fact, it is not only the destruction of Kharkiv, but also of all their world.
The annexation of Crimea by Moscow in 2014 and the eight years of war in the Donbass have forged national unity and Ukrainian patriotism . Does the Russian invasion still reinforce this phenomenon?
Many inhabitants of Kharkiv who tried not to get involved in the Donbass war today seek to engage in the army or the Territorial Defense. Many support the soldiers, whether with material help or encouraging words. It’s paradoxical, but what Putin made has made the inhabitants of Kharkiv much more pro-Ukrainians than they were before.
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