Once of approximately 13 thousand population, the urban-type settlement lying almost 50 kilometers from Kyiv, meets you now with mine warnings, empty windows, leveled houses, burnt cars, and scorched land. According to the Minister for Communities and Territories Development Oleksiy Chernyshov, the enemies damaged and destroyed two-thirds of the high-rise buildings. Eight apartment buildings will be dismantled – they can not be restored.
LB.ua visited Borodyanka several times: on 6 April, less than a week after de-occupation, and 18 days after it.
After detailed information about russians' atrocities in Bucha was revealed, one would think it can't get worse. But then the Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova stated: it's Borodyanka where the situation with victims among civilians in the Kyiv district is the worst.
The central street of Borodyanka was destroyed by aircraft, there was also artillery shelling. The exact number of those killed by the enemy is still unclear – the rescuers are still removing the rubbles. But it's obvious that there are a lot of victims – 26 dead bodies were recovered from under the rubbles of only two buildings, and more than 200 locals are missing as of 6 April. As of 17 April, the rescue workers recovered 41 bodies.
There are a lot of writings on the remaining fences and walls: "people live here", "children", "russians f*ck off" – for the occupiers, "stop, I'll shoot" and "V" – from them for Ukrainians.
There are also tags that appeared after de-occupation – "watch out, mines". There are a lot of mines here – the road in the Zhytomyr direction is literally covered with them.
Despite numerous reminders of death, Borodyanka is also about life: flowers, stray dogs, rescuers, law enforcers, volunteers, locals who survived. Borodyanka inhabitants represent some new category of unbowed. For example, the local resident Tetyana saved eight people during the occupation. She brought them water and shared her own food with the people blocked under the rubbles, according to the Ukrinform story.
The Kyiv Regional Military Administration reports that Borodyanka has already been searched for mines, and the Presidents of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia have even visited the settlement. "That's where the dark side of humankind has shown its face," – the Lithuanian leader Gitanas Nauseda commented on what he saw.
However, a lot of work is still to be done in the settlement, in particular, to restore water centralized water supply and drainage. For the volunteers and rescue workers who work on the restoration of the settlement, modular houses sent from the Zakarpattya region were established. That allows them to not leave the perimeter and live here to remove the consequences of the hostilities as soon as possible.
