Ukraine’s farmland is famous for its rich black soil and is considered a breadbasket for the world, but on Thursday, after months of war, residents of a farming village were queuing on the front lines for food.
The Russian invading force that crossed the border on February 24 failed to quite reach tiny Lebyazhe as Ukrainian troops scramble to defend routes to the country’s second city, Kharkiv.
But the quiet rural community, sometimes hit by shells, was locked in the ensuing conflict until this month’s lightning-fast Ukrainian counteroffensive drove the invader back.
“It was awful, awful. I can’t even describe it,” said 75-year-old Galina Mykhailivna, who crouched while waiting for food rations outside a village cultural center with a gaping shell hole in the facade.
“It’s tragic, they destroyed the whole village,” she explained, exaggerating her distress because most of the houses are still standing, although there are signs of war everywhere.
“Before it was so beautiful, now it’s ruined,” she said.
As residents gathered, a truck-mounted Ukrainian army multiple rocket launcher thundered through the narrow streets of the village, while artillery detonations rumbled from time to time.
– Six months without electricity –
Ominously, Lebyazhe lies downstream of a major dam on the Siversky Donets River, which was damaged by a Russian missile this week, amid signs Moscow is targeting civilian infrastructure.
Its hinterland boasts vast expanses of sunflower fields – a global source of cooking oil – and the houses in the village itself typically keep productive vegetable patches, goats and ducks.
But on Thursday, community leader Olexander Nesmiyan — the tallest man in the village — oversaw the distribution of food parcels.
Each box, adorned with the UN World Food Program logo, contains 12 kilos of staples – rice, oil, pasta, canned beans and tinned meat – enough to feed one person for a month.
It was a heavy burden for some of the elderly villagers, but the neighbors helped. Boxes were loaded into wheelbarrows and strapped to bikes while dogs and children enjoyed playing in the crowd.
The gathering is cheerful, a trip to the village store and an opportunity to greet neighbors, perhaps to forget Lebyazhe’s other troubles for a couple of hours.
“Yes, six months without electricity. And now three months without gas, but we can manage it somehow,” said 65-year-old Lyubov Polushkyna.
