Ihar Kazmerchak, a linguistics researcher from Ukraine’s besieged city of Chernihiv, spends his nights in a bomb shelter and his days lining up for the little portable water officials have left to distribute.
The northern city, noted for its eclectic monasteries, is surrounded by Russian soldiers and is often bombarded. It lacks electricity, heating, and running water. The lists of drugs that are no longer available in pharmacies are growing longer by the day.
“Everyone is talking about Chernihiv becoming the next Mariupol in the basements at night,” Kazmerchak, 38, said, referring to the southern port city 845 kilometers (525 miles) distant that has seen some of the worst tragedies since Russia invaded Ukraine.
The apprehension is not unfounded. On Wednesday, Russian airstrikes demolished Chernihiv’s main bridge across the Desna River on the road to Kyiv; on Friday, artillery shells left the remaining pedestrian bridge inaccessible, cutting off the last feasible route for people to flee or food and medical supplies to enter.
Russia’s invasion has slowed to a grinding war of attrition a little over a month in, as its military tries to pound places like Chernihiv into submission. Hospital bombings and other non-military targets, such as the Mariupol theater, where Ukrainian officials say a Russian attack killed 300 people last week, have sparked accusations of war crimes.
On Friday, a high-ranking military officer claimed the major goal of the first stage of the operation — decreasing Ukraine’s fighting capacity — had “largely been fulfilled,” raising questions about the offensive’s direction. Russian forces may now focus on “the major goal, the liberation of Donbas,” according to Col.-Gen Sergei Rudskoi, deputy commander of the Russian general staff.
Donbas is a predominantly Russian-speaking eastern region where Russian-backed rebels have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014 and where many citizens want to be closer to Moscow. Mariupol is located there; however, it is outside of the separatists’ two controlled regions.
Russian troops appeared to have suspended their ground operation aimed at seizing Kyiv for the time being, according to US officials and were focusing their efforts on winning control of the Donbas region in the country’s southeast.
The Russian military, meanwhile, continues to besiege a number of other major Ukrainian cities, including Chernihiv, which is 146 kilometers (91 miles) from Kyiv, according to British defense authorities.
“It is probable that Russia will continue to employ its heavy weaponry on urban areas in order to minimize its own already significant losses, at the expense of additional civilian casualties,” the UK Ministry of Defense said in its weekly intelligence report on the war.
The Russian military has reached the city of Slavutych and captured a hospital, according to the governor of the Kyiv region.
Slavutych is located north of Kyiv and west of Chernihiv, outside the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exclusion zone imposed following the 1986 tragedy. Workers at the Chernobyl site call it home.
The city’s mayor was also kidnapped, according to Governor Oleksandr Pavlyuk, although later in the day, some media stated that the mayor was quickly freed. Neither allegation could be independently verified.
Residents of Slavutych flocked to the streets with Ukrainian flags to oppose the Russian incursion, according to the governor.
“The Russians started shooting into the air. Flash-bang grenades were thrown into the throng. The residents, on the other hand, did not disperse; in fact, more of them showed up,” Pavlyuk added.
