Natalia, Serhii, Olga and Roman are some of the dozens of civilians and soldiers whose testimonies were collected over the course of two weeks by a team of journalists from EL PAÍS. Roman, a 52-year-old Ukrainian, had been living in Spain for 23 years, but returned to his country after the Russian invasion. But now, his day-to-day consists of fighting as an infantryman, in a conflict that has already claimed the lives of some 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers and wounded more than 130,000, according to estimates by U.S. Until a year-and-a-half ago, they led the lives of ordinary Europeans: they were bakers, teachers, engineers, drivers. Like him, most of the Ukrainian soldiers are not professionals. And here he continues, at the age of 52, now on the strategic Lyman front, between Donetsk and Luhansk. But days after the war began, at dawn on February 24, 2022, he decided to return to his country to enlist and defend the freedom and lives of people like Natalia, Olga and Serhii. For 23 years, he lived in Alcalá de Henares, in Spain. We have to recover our lives, our houses, our towns. Serhii speaks of the counteroffensive with great hope: “It has to go well. Serhii and Olga, 72, are determined to return to their home for good, even if they are the only residents of the village, even if they have to sleep in a shed, even if the rubble and fields are riddled with mines. Along the bleak road, you can only see destroyed buildings and jumbles of iron. It’s impossible to live in many places, such as their town of Kamianka. The front line is constantly changing the war has left countless municipalities in ruin. Serhii and Olga Portianov also need the counteroffensive to be successful, not to stay in their village, but to be able to return to it. “It’s our hope to end this war and finally move on.” She starts to cry when she thinks about the possibility that the planned Ukrainian counteroffensive will not go well - that the Russians will return, that her city, once again, will be on the front lines of battle.
It’s an idyllic place, where she milks her cows and makes cream, butter and cheese that she sells to her neighbors. The property overlooks the Ingulets River. Natalia, 66, lives in a two-storey house with a garden full of tulips and daisies. She says that, today, everything is relatively calm, but about a month ago, 10 missiles fell in a single day. Her town - Snigurivka, in southeastern Ukraine - was occupied by the Russians from April to November 2022. Even her cows and calves learned to hide behind the trees when shells began to fall. Day and night, for several months, Natalia Valentinova Sitnik heard explosions and gunshots.
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