Avdiivka

Avdiivka. A Ukrainian town that for the last couple of days has again been appearing in news services due to the intense attack launched on it by the Russian army.

Avdiivka is for Donetsk what Łomianki is for Warsaw or Wieliczka to Krakow. It is a suburb of a large urban center. When Donetsk got occupied in 2014, shortly after the war began, Avdiivka withstood Russian aggression and continued to do so for nearly a decade, resisting the invaders.

Together with other foundations, we visited Avdiivka five times last year. We went there to deliver food for civilians, car batteries (more on which in a moment), and finally, a car funded by the SASA Foundation. The car was delivered to Igor – a local volunteer who takes care of the Avdiivka population and dozens of stray dogs that were left behind when its inhabitants started to leave the town.

There aren’t many people living in Avdiivka. The vast majority of them left the town in several waves. First, in 2014, when the siege of the town began. The subsequent outflow took place in 2022. A fraction of inhabitants, mainly older people, remained in their homes despite constant shelling. However, we need to point out here that the phrase ‘in their homes’ is a stylistic simplification on our part.

You can’t live in your apartment when shells explode outside your window. You have to go down to the basements. You have to move your entire life underground, to narrow corridors and rooms without windows. You don’t have electricity there or a generator. The bulb in your room works thanks to the car battery, which provides light for a few hours only. Then the car battery discharges and darkness falls. You charge the car battery with a rectifier. During this time, the only light source for you and your loved ones may be a flashlight or a candle. That’s probably why, during our first stay in Avdiivka, when we asked an elderly man with a cataract in one eye what he needed, he replied that he would like a second car battery. He could then still have light while his rectifier was charging the dead battery. He received the second battery a month later, during our next stay in Avdiivka, thanks to fundraising organized by people from the Squirrel Team (Drużyna Wiewióry).

Why are these people stuck in this nightmare reality? Why don’t they escape the town and move to a safer place? It is a complex matter.

When the full-scale invasion began in 2022, some of the town’s inhabitants were said to have left for the Poltava area. They lived in allotment gardens on the outskirts of the town. It was bearable until cold autumn and then winter weather came. What were they supposed to do? They came back. If they are going to die, it is better to die at home.

We also heard another explanation for why civilians still live in the town. Avdiivka inhabitants are sometimes called ‘żduny’ from the Russian word ‘żdat’ meaning ‘to wait’. ‘Żduny’ is a pejorative term. It means ‘those waiting for Russian mir’. Some people think that the inhabitants of Avdiivka are simply waiting for the arrival of Russians. They believe that people from Avdiivka remember the golden times of the USSR, and that Russia, as the successor of the Soviet empire, will remain at the core of their identity. We once asked Igor:

– Igor, if this is the case that ‘żduny’ are waiting for Russians, why are you helping them?

He replied:

– You see, if we Ukrainians help them, people in Avdiivka will accept this help. If we lose this town and Russians come here, they won’t care about the inhabitants of Avdiivka. People will see what ‘Russian mir’ is really like. And then? And then we will retake the town and those who stayed in it will see that when we were here, we did not abandon them, but when the Russians came, they forgot all about them. This war is not only for territory – it’s a war for souls.

Soon, REACT is going to Ukraine again. We have an option of delivering food to civilians in Avdiivka. However, even among our crew, there is no consensus on whether it is worth going there. The risk is high. We read different posts and different opinions on forums. Some people believe that civilians in Avdiivka should not be helped. Those who have been there usually see the matter differently.