Residents of ruined village in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region rebuilding their lives after returning

KHARKIV, Ukraine

Residents of the village of Kamianka in eastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region are attempting to rebuild their lives by building houses upon their return.

Kamianka, which had a population of approximately 1,200 before the start of the Russia-Ukraine war, was captured by the Russian army in March 2022 following intense attacks and remained in Russian hands for about six months before Ukrainian forces regained control of the village in September last year.

Almost all of the houses in Kamianka were seriously damaged in the attacks, and Ukrainians who returned to the village are repairing their homes, while some are re-building them altogether.

“My house was turned into ruins. Now we are rebuilding houses. The same goes for the houses in the village. The houses of my parents, my brother and my sister were destroyed down to their foundations. I had many relatives here. Our homes were all destroyed by the Russians,” Volodymyr Korniycha told Anadolu.

Saying the reason for his return to Kamianka is due to being born here, Volodymyr noted that around 70 residents have returned to the village.

“We had to leave our life here. This was a very difficult thing. Our cows stayed here. We hoped to return soon. But if I hadn’t left here, I wouldn’t have survived. Those who escaped from here were crying. Also, we didn’t know where to go. We took our dogs with us and left,” Volodymyr’s wife Lydmila Korniycha told Anadolu.

Lydmila said they stayed with their relatives in the country’s Dnipropetrovsk region for a while.

“After our army saved Kamianka, we returned to the village and started a new life.”

• Kamianka
• Kharkiv
• Russia
• Ukraine