Young mothers gather around the baby carriage in the chilly morning and gossip about the village while waiting for medical examination on the truck. The arrival of the car was a big event.
For eight months, the village of Levkivka in eastern Ukraine was occupied by Russian troops, who cut off about 300 inhabitants from the outside world. There was no running water or electricity, residents said, and Russian soldiers often snatched their cell phones and stepped on them for fear that locals would reveal their location. The only medical care was provided by two village nurses, who defied constant shelling to reach homes with limited supplies and medicines.
Although Ukrainian forces recaptured Levkivka in September, reconnecting the village to basic services was slow. Electricity and water are back, but medical care is still difficult to get. medical truck, provided by the United Nations Population Fund and staff with doctors from the city of Kharkiv, 75 miles to the north, circumnavigate the area, part of the Ukrainian government’s continued effort to bring normalcy to once occupied villages in east.
With Russian troops tunneling just 50 miles away and the occasional roar of cannons in the distance, a sense of urgency can be felt. The Ukrainian military may have cleared the immediate area of Russian forces, but complete control of the territory means more than planting a flag. And in the villages of eastern Ukraine, where many locals speak a mixture of Ukrainian and Russian known as surzhik, loyalty to Kiev is not guaranteed.
Viktor Putyetin, 62, visits the mobile clinic for a check-up, whispering that there is substantial support for the Russian military in Levkivka, despite his strong opposition to the Kremlin’s plans for Ukraine. . He said that during the occupation he approached a 22-year-old Russian soldier operating an anti-aircraft battery, who was wearing a Soviet hammer and sickle arm patch.
“I asked him, ‘Sonny, have you ever seen the Soviet Union?’” Mr. Putyetin said. “’In the Soviet Union, you had to wipe your butt with newspaper because there was no toilet paper. Ask your father about it.’”
While war not far from people’s minds, most villagers are preoccupied with more mundane concerns like renewing their prescriptions and dealing with their hypertension and diabetes. Many people who come to the clinic are women: the elderly or young mothers with young children.
Halina Romashenko, 26, gave birth to her son Sasha, just as Ukrainian forces were pushing Russian troops out of the area. For seven months, she received no prenatal care and was told she had to hide in her potato cellar when the rocket hit the fields around her home. She said that her family had no money to move and had nowhere else to go.
“So we have to stay here,” Ms. Romashenko said.
Valentina Kalashnikova, 66, her grandmother, accompanied her to the clinic, wearing glittery pink lipstick for the occasion. The stress of her occupation exacerbated her high blood pressure. A shell destroyed her kitchen and her two cows were killed. She tried to put on a bright smile, but sometimes she couldn’t hold back her tears.
“I was scared, of course, mainly because of them,” she said, pointing to her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. “I’m a war old woman.”
Levkivka, a village of tidy houses along the River Siversky Donets, is located in an area ravaged by fierce fighting. The carcasses of tanks and armored vehicles, their metal shells punched by rockets, littered the farm fields. Entire villages were simply wiped out, with piles of bricks and charred wood where the houses once stood.
The Russian military did not subject the people of Levkivka to the horrors suffered in places like the Kyiv suburbs of Kyiv. president or Irpinwhere hundreds of civilians died. But their presence is still traumatic, locals said. Tatyana Budyanska, one of two nurses in the town, said she was on her way home with her 3-year-old grandson when Russian troops stopped her and accused her of giving information to Ukrainian forces. They pointed an automatic rifle at the boy’s head, she said, but eventually let them go.
Compared to many neighboring villages, Levkivka seems relatively peaceful, a bit of luck that locals attribute to the Russian military’s decision to withdraw before the Ukrainian troops arrived. One morning, the people woke up and the Russian forces were gone.
This has made Levkivka a refuge for people whose homes are far worse. Halina Cherednichenko, nearly 80 years old and walking with a distinct hunch, recalls rushing to fetch water when her daughter’s house caught fire during an attack on a nearby village. She now lives in Levkivka, where volunteers provide her with necessities as well as seeds to plant a small garden. She said that at the medical center, she was given free medicine.
“I am an old woman,” she said. “A lot of people like me are long dead, but I’m still moving.”
Alina Okunyeva, an ultrasound specialist with the mobile medical unit, said she had carried out an extensive survey of once occupied villages in northeastern Ukraine. Some villages still do not have electricity or water, she said, and phone communications are intermittent. Residents are isolated and under the influence of stress. High blood pressure is a big problem, she said, but in general, people have coped well.
Ms Okunyeva, 27, said: “I think things are going to be much worse. They will never defeat our people.”
For many, it is still difficult to quell the fear that war will return to their villages. Fighting has increased nearby, and it seems that Russian forces are Prepare for a new attack aimed at recapturing some of the territory that was recaptured last year. Landmines scattered across the farm fields periodically explode, straining nerves.
Nina Kachenko, 72, said: “We are alive, but we are still living in fear. The war is not over yet.”
While the mothers went to check on their newborns in the medical truck, a cardiologist from the same team took over an office in the nearby town’s clinic, mostly patients. old. Outside the office, locals hotly debated whether the Russians could one day revolt to overthrow their president, Vladimir V. Putin, like the Ukrainians. once expelled their Kremlin-backed president during a popular uprising in 2014.
Halina Kapran, 66, wearing a gray fur hat, said she believes Russians have little support for Mr. Putin and that they will one day liberate themselves. Mr. Putyetin rejected this view, saying that Propaganda has turned the Russians into docile farm animals.
“Halina, if I told you every day that you were a cow, you would believe it,” he said.
Inside the medical room, the doctor is busy checking the electrocardiogram and blood pressure. He is also prescribing anti-anxiety medication.
