No sleep in Ukraine’s relentlessly bombed city

• Mykolaiv has been under continuous Russian bombardment since February. Residents estimate that they have only experienced 20 peaceful nights since conflict began.
• The Russian bombardment, which has included a number of daytime attacks, has intensified over the past week. Sometimes there is a definite target, but most of the time it’s a game of chance.
• Since February, Russian missiles have been responsible for the deaths of 130 civilians and the injuries of 589 more in Mykolaiv.

In Mykolaiv, the first night is always the most difficult. In a Ukrainian city that has been under virtually continual Russian bombardment since the war’s start in February, sleeping is practically impossible.

Your thoughts are either racing, trying desperately to determine how close the most recent explosion was, whether it was a missile or a rocket, a single explosion or a salvo, or you’re wondering when the windows will start to tremble once more and the air raid siren will start to scream.

But if outsiders like me, who have visited the city three times since the conflict started, find the long evenings difficult, how can residents, who estimate that they have only experienced 20 or so peaceful nights since the war started, possibly cope?

“Sleep? Not a lot, “stated our hotel’s manager one morning last week. When she hurried past the boarded-up windows in March to show visitors the makeshift bomb shelter in the cellar, she appeared inexhaustibly vivacious.

Her expression today, however, revealed the weariness that seems to be consuming most of Mykolaiv.

“I don’t have a cellar of my own at home. It is submerged. We have nowhere to hide, therefore. Just lying there in the pitch black. The blasts were a few blocks away last night, which was the closest yet “She spoke.

As people ready themselves immediately, unconsciously, and permanently to react to anything that may sound like a missile or a plane, once commonplace sounds like a slammed door or a growling truck are now filled with horror.

“Me? I’ve been making an effort to get to bed early. at 7 or 8 o’clock. If you’re lucky, you’ll have a few hours before the booms start this way “said Gela Chavchavadze, 60, the proprietor of a café that provides free prepared meals to neighbourhoods that were attacked the previous evening.

Usually, the explosions begin shortly after midnight. In addition to jet-launched bombs and destructive cruise missiles, there was artillery bombardment from Russian forces to the south as well as rocket fire from behind the frontlines farther east.

Sometimes there is a definite target, but most of the time, whether on purpose or by accident, the explosives happen in residential areas at random, turning every night into a terrifying game of chance.

The Russian bombardment, which has included a number of daytime attacks, has intensified over the past week.

Mykolaiv military spokesman Capt. Dmitro Pletenchuk offered some hypothetical statistical solace to visiting journalists standing close to the rubble of the city’s administrative headquarters by saying, “It’s a huge city. However, he advised us to always wear body armour and emailed me later to clarify that since February, Russian missiles had been responsible for the deaths of 130 civilians and the injuries of 589 more.

Two hours after cluster bombs detonated on the street outside, dentist Alexander Yakovenko, 58, swept glass fragments off the remains of his kitchen table and questioned why he was still alive.

“I’m at a loss for words. I shouldn’t be here [living]. Every single night, the siren sounds. But last night I made the decision to relocate out of my bedroom and into the other side of the flat for whatever reason “He pointed at the wall’s shrapnel marks, which undoubtedly would have killed him.

Olga, a neighbour who had stopped by to assist with cleanup, started crying.

“What should I tell my grandson? He cried when he woke up one night and told me, “Granny, I want to live,” “Before going back to clear more glass from the floor, she said.

“Everything is in God’s hands. What will occur will occur, “Four hours after a missile created a large crater in her yard, 67-year-old Svetlana Kharlanova stood on the doorstep of her nearly miraculously intact cottage, nursing a slight shrapnel cut to her head.

Others are turning to something that was once forbidden in Mykolaiv during the first several months of the war in order to find comfort.

“Even in the early morning hours, I now notice a large number of individuals drinking. I disagree that the alcohol ban should have been lifted. It is inappropriate during a period of conflict, “said Gela Chavhavadze, proprietor of the café.

Residents in Mykolaiv said that they are holding on.
In many regions of Ukraine, heavy drinking is a problem and a fact of life. I once witnessed a loud, slurred quarrel between two older men at a café and a drunken soldier stumble up some steps in a hotel.

But Mykolaiv-based craft brewer Dmitro Voloshchenko argued that “I don’t think we have any more issues now than we did before the prohibition was lifted. If you can control your consumption, alcohol can be quite beneficial.”

Nobody doubts the physical and psychological harm that the nightly bombardments inflict on the approximately 250,000 residents of the city who remain today, out of a pre-war population of 500,000.

“It ruins our dreams and our sleep. It impairs people’s nervous systems and results in anxiety. It’s challenging. Every night I’m awakened by both explosions and phone calls. I have nightmares of the conflict and the devastation “Oleksandr Demianov, a trauma physician who has cared for many of the victims in the city, stated.

However, there are some individuals learning to enjoy the sound of explosions at night, though not in Mykolaiv itself.

Kherson, a neighbouring city 50 kilometres (30 miles) to the southeast, is occupied by Russia. However, employing brand-new Western artillery and missiles, Ukrainian forces have started targeting Russian positions close to the city in recent weeks.

“We rejoice if we hear an explosion because we know it indicates our forces are approaching us. We are awaiting our release “said Konstantin Ryzhenko, a free-lance journalist from Ukraine who has taken refuge in Kherson.

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