Not even a spoon was spared
In the farm village of Vilkhivka, east of Kharkiv, one hundred days of war compressed into a single community the full weight of what modern invasion means: occupation, forced displacement, the shelling of mourners at a graveside, and the slow erasure of a place that had simply existed, unremarkably, for generations. Russian forces arrived on the first day of the invasion, stayed until they were driven out, and continued to shell the village long after retreating. Ukrainian forces retook Vilkhivka on March 25, but the liberation arrived to find a village that was, in nearly every material sense, already gone.
- Russian tanks rolled into Vilkhivka on the first day of the invasion, turning a quiet farming community into a frontline, with soldiers occupying homes, raiding the village office, and cutting residents off from the outside world.
- At least five civilians were killed — including a woman struck by rocket shrapnel in her own yard and two young men shelled while burying her — and roughly seventy residents were moved across the border into Russia under circumstances that remain unclear.
- The Kraken Battalion fought street by street to retake the village on March 25, eventually forcing Russian soldiers — some as young as eighteen, who believed they were on a training exercise — to surrender at the ruins of the school.
- Even after liberation, Russian shelling continued to kill: a thirty-two-year-old construction worker was struck walking to collect humanitarian aid nearly a month after Ukrainian forces had reclaimed the village.
- War crimes prosecutors are now investigating civilian deaths and alleged Russian misconduct, exhuming bodies and documenting evidence including apparent cluster munition strikes on private farmland.
- Vilkhivka today is a demolition site — nine in ten homes destroyed, no electricity, gas, or water, and a population barely a tenth of what it was — leaving survivors like a seventy-seven-year-old woman with nothing but a shed and her son's portrait.
Liubov Novikova was inside her cottage on Studentska Street when a rocket killed her on March 2. Her son had stepped out for milk. A week later, as villagers gathered to bury her at the cemetery near the treeline, artillery shells began falling. Yevgeny Shalom, twenty-two, died instantly. Valeri Ivanov, twenty-six, lost his hand and bled to death before reaching a hospital. The mourners buried Shalom in the crater the shell had made.
Vilkhivka is a farm village in the grasslands east of Kharkiv, built around four hamlets and a dammed river lake, named for the alder trees that grow there. It had a school, a meat plant, and vegetable gardens behind nearly every home. It was unremarkable until Russian tanks crossed the border in late February and the village became, over the next hundred days, a microcosm of the entire war.
Russian forces spread into the surrounding woods, occupied vacant homes, and raided the village office — breaking down the doors, tearing down the Ukrainian flag, and taking property documents and the safe. Residents like turbine worker Olena Bobrysheva sheltered in their bathrooms, surviving on canned goods and potatoes, cut off from Kharkiv by the frontline. Soldiers emerged from the forests to draw well water and knock on doors for food and clothing. Their shelling was harder to avoid. A civilian driving medicine toward the village was killed when a Russian tank destroyed his car. Cluster munitions, banned by most countries, struck private farmland.
On March 25, the Kraken Battalion — a volunteer unit backed by captured Russian equipment — fought its way into Vilkhivka street by street. The Russians retreated to the school, where Ukrainian forces advanced behind a tank firing at the building. After two hours, twenty-seven soldiers surrendered. Many were teenagers from the Donetsk region who had believed they were going on a training mission.
As they retreated, Russian forces warned residents that air strikes were coming. About seventy villagers were transported across the border to Belgorod; most eventually made their way to Poland, Germany, and Latvia. The shelling did not stop with the retreat. On April 21, a thirty-two-year-old construction worker was struck by a shell while walking to collect humanitarian aid. His mother buried him in the yard beneath the laundry line. A war crimes prosecutor exhumed him five weeks later.
Those who returned found a demolition site. The bridge was destroyed. A missile protrudes from the grass on Central Street. The school is a concrete frame. There is no electricity, gas, or water. Nine in ten homes are gone. Stefania Leskiv, seventy-seven, lost her house of thirty-nine years — 'not even a spoon' was spared. On Ukrainian Street, a missile destroyed every house but one. Why it survived, no one can say — a lone remnant standing as both miracle and reminder of what Vilkhivka used to be.
Liubov Novikova was inside her three-room cottage on Studentska Street when the rocket came through on March 2. Her son Gennadiy was out fetching milk. By the time he returned home, his mother—a dairy farm worker born in the Russian city of Belgorod—was dead, her hands already white, killed by shrapnel from an explosion that left a crater just inside her chain-link fence. A week later, villagers gathered to bury her in the cemetery near the treeline, four hundred metres from the nearest homes. As they were covering her body with dirt on the grassy slope overlooking the Rohanka River, artillery shells began falling. Yevgeny Shalom, twenty-two years old, died instantly. Valeri Ivanov, twenty-six, lost his hand and bled to death before he could reach a hospital. The men placed Shalom in the crater left by the explosion and covered him over.
Vilkhivka is a farm village in the grasslands and forests east of Kharkiv, built around four hamlets that spread across a lake formed when the river was dammed to irrigate corn and soya fields. The village takes its name from the alder trees that grow there—vilkha in Ukrainian. It had a school on School Street, a meat plant that employed those who didn't commute to factories in the city, and nearly every home had a vegetable garden. It was, by all accounts, unremarkable until late February, when Russian tanks crossed the border and roared into town. Over the next hundred days, the village became a microcosm of the larger war: occupation, depopulation, deportation, shelling, street battles, killings, and a reckoning with what had been lost.
When the tanks arrived on the first day of the invasion, they were headed toward Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city and a key target of President Vladimir Putin's campaign. A large Russian column came two days later but found Ukrainian defences waiting five kilometres down the road in Elitne. The Russians spread out in the woods around Vilkhivka, taking over vacant homes. There was shooting and shelling as the two sides fought it out. Olena Bobrysheva, a turbine factory worker, hunkered in her bathroom with her husband—the most secure place in the house. Cut off from Kharkiv by the frontline, they became self-reliant, eating stored canned goods and potatoes. When winter temperatures dipped, groups of four or five Russian soldiers would emerge from the forests to draw water from wells and knock on doors looking for food and warm clothing. Bobrysheva never spoke to them and they never came to her home, but their shelling attacks were harder to avoid.
Russian forces also raided the village office. A convoy of vehicles arrived, broke through the main doors, shot up the front hallway, and went upstairs. They took down the Ukrainian flag, went through filing cabinets in the secretary's office, and made off with property ownership documents and the safe. The troops said they would return in two days and wanted a new village council chosen, one acceptable to the Russian government, but they never came back. War crimes prosecutors are investigating the death of Valery Kot, who was driving toward Vilkhivka with a load of medicine when a Russian tank blasted his sedan on March 15. A farmer recounted being shot at while bringing fuel to his property; he ducked just in time, but bullet holes still mark his windshield. Another farmer showed investigators two rockets that had hit his property—both appeared to be parts of cluster munitions, which are banned by most countries but which Russia has used extensively against civilians in Ukraine.
On March 25, a convoy of SUVs, trucks, and armoured vehicles approached Vilkhivka under clear skies. They were members of the Kraken Battalion, a volunteer unit started by veterans of the Azov Regiment, backed by tanks and equipment seized from the Russian army. The Kraken fighters battled their way into the village, moving from street to street. The Russians retreated to the school, where drone video shows Ukrainian forces approaching behind a tank that fired repeatedly at the building. After two hours, the Russians began to surrender. Twenty-seven prisoners were taken, shown in videos stripped to their underwear with hoods over their heads and hands bound behind them. About seventy were killed, according to the Ukrainian military. The foot soldiers were recruited from the Donetsk People's Republic, the Ukrainian region seized by Russian-backed separatists in 2014. They were eighteen to twenty years old, had joined the army on contract, and thought they were being sent on a training mission.
As they retreated, the Russians told residents that air strikes were coming and they should leave. Transport trucks ferried some villagers seven kilometres north to Verkhnya Rohanka. About seventy villagers were then moved across the border to Belgorod. It is unclear whether they went voluntarily. The Russians wanted them to move in with relatives in Russia, but most went on to Poland, Germany, and Latvia. Having lost Vilkhivka, the Russians shelled the area relentlessly. Olexi Kettler, a thirty-two-year-old construction worker, was walking to the bus stop on April 21 to collect humanitarian aid when a shell pierced his upper back. His mother Nadia buried him in the yard beneath the laundry line. He stayed there until a war crimes prosecutor dug him up on May 27 as part of an investigation into Russian conduct.
When residents returned after Ukrainian forces retook the village, they found a largely deserted demolition site. The main road passes unused mines and wrecked cars. A destroyed armoured vehicle that blocked the road had to be pushed onto the shoulder. The bridge over the river was destroyed. A missile protrudes like a lawn dart from the grass beside Central Street. The school, used as a military position, has been reduced to a concrete frame with collapsed walls. Its front steps are strewn with broken glass, artillery fragments, and ammunition, some of it unexploded. There is still no electricity, gas, or water. The population is less than a tenth of what it was before the war. Nine out of ten homes have been destroyed. Stefania Leskiv, who had lived in her house for thirty-nine years, lost almost everything when a rocket demolished it. "Not even a spoon" was spared, she said. She is seventy-seven years old with no family to care for her. Her son was a police officer in Chornobyl; she blames radiation poisoning for his death. She keeps his portrait in the shed, which survived the blast. On Ukrainian Street, a missile destroyed every house except one. Why it was spared, nobody is sure, but it stands there still—a survivor but also a cruel reminder of what Vilkhivka used to be.
Citações Notáveis
We had such a good village, better than the others— Liubov Kurkina, deputy of the village council
The most important thing is we are alive— Alexander Novikov, a farmer who lost 80 cattle to shelling
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why does the cemetery attack matter so much to this story? It seems like one incident among many.
Because it shows something about the logic of the war itself. These weren't soldiers being targeted—they were civilians burying their dead. The Russians shelled them anyway. It's the kind of thing that breaks something in a community that can't be repaired with reconstruction.
The source mentions that most of the Russian soldiers were very young, from poor regions, and thought they were on a training mission. Does that change how we understand what happened?
It complicates it. These weren't ideological zealots. They were conscripts and contract soldiers, many of them teenagers, who didn't understand what they were being sent to do. That doesn't erase the harm—Liubov Novikova is still dead—but it does suggest a war built on deception at every level.
What struck you most about the village itself before the war?
That it was so ordinary. A school on School Street. Gardens. A meat plant. People commuting to jobs in the city. The kind of place where you buy eggs from your neighbour. That ordinariness is what makes the destruction so stark. There's no grand narrative here, no strategic value. Just a village that existed, and then didn't.
The deputy of the village council, Liubov Kurkina, stayed through most of the occupation. What does that tell us?
It tells us that some people couldn't leave, or wouldn't. She came back and walked the streets with a list, trying to bring order back to what remained. That's not heroism exactly—it's just the work of keeping a place alive when everything is telling you to give up.
Why did the Russians move seventy villagers to Belgorod? What was the purpose?
The source doesn't fully explain it, which is part of the horror. They wanted them to move in with relatives in Russia, but most fled onward to Poland, Germany, Latvia. It looks like forced displacement, but the details are murky. That ambiguity itself is part of the war's damage—you can't even be certain what was done to you or why.