In Ukraine's liberated Lyman, the scars of Russian occupation remain

As the SUV jolted to a halt at the railway crossing, headed toward Lyman, a Ukrainian soldier guarding the checkpoint, rifle slung over his shoulder, asked for the password. The soldiers in the SUV barked out a word, but the guard scowled and shook his head. Wrong password.

"Are we in Donetsk Oblast already? Or still in Kharkiv Oblast?" the driver asked. "Donetsk Oblast," the guard laughed. The soldier in the passenger seat gave the day's Donetsk password, and the guard waved them off, chuckling.

Amid Ukraine's ongoing counteroffensive against Russian forces, regional boundaries in the country's east have become blurred by the fog of war. Russia's recent referendums and illegal annexations in four occupied areas widely denounced as a sham by the West contest the borders of where Ukraine ends and Russia begins.

But regardless of precisely where Ukrainian civilians find themselves geographically, those that remain in the fought-over areas are left to pick up the pieces of their former lives as best they can, or pack up what possessions they still have and rebuild elsewhere.

One of the soldiers in that SUV,identified only as Ivan, has been stationed about 100 kilometres north, in Kupiansk, and is using several days of leave to visit his home in Lyman for the first time since he enlisted on Feb. 24, the first day of the Russian invasion.

Located in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Lyman fell to Russian forces in late May and served as a significant rail hub and staging area for a planned drive west. It was liberated late last month when Ukraine's rapid counteroffensive rolled around the city, inflicting heavy losses on the Russian forces stationed there and dealing a particularly acute blow as swaths of the just-annexed regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv and Kherson were wrested back from Russian control.

At the edge of town, Ivan cautiously approached his front gate. His home has stood vacant for nearly eight months and, for much of that time, Ivan had no way of knowing if it had been destroyed.

Many of his neighbours were Russian sympathizers, he said, if not outright collaborators. Ivan, 31, is vocal about his allegiance to Ukraine and carefully inspected the property, worried someone may have planted mines or booby traps in anticipation of his return.

A woman on a bicycle passed, riding through drizzle. "She's a separatist!" Ivan exclaimed, pointing his finger. The woman on the bike shouted back, insisting she is loyal to Ukraine. But Ivan maintains she took payments from Lyman's previous pro-Russian mayor.

Inside,his home had been ransacked. A large-screen television, all his kitchen appliances, hobby drones virtually everything of value is gone. In the backyard, grapevines, heavy with unpicked clusters, and an apple tree dropped rotting fruit to the ground. What appeared to be an errant artillery strike destroyed his shed and workspace.

The blast from the explosion also knocked out the windows of his home and ripped off wide reams of wallpaper and ceiling sections, revealing a wood frame and packed straw-and-clay interior.

Although there is no severe structural damage to the main house, heavy rain soaked the inside, which will soon become mouldy: Ivan's home is no longer livable.

A native of Debaltseve, Ukraine, farther east, Ivan came to Lyman in 2014 to escape the fighting there; this is the second home the Russians have forced him to abandon.

About a third of Lyman's pre-war population of 22,000 remain in the city, but how many wish to stay and rebuild is unknown.It is clear, however, that almost no buildings in the city escaped Russian occupation unscathed. With the onset of winter and freezing temperatures just weeks away, those that stay face a precarious existence.

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In the city centre, Teras Lohhinov, 63, from the Ukrainian Red Cross's emergency response team, said the priority now is preparing the "some thousands" in Lyman for the onset of deep cold.

Those that remain are generally too old and infirm or too destitute to leave, Teras explained. His team is passing out tarps to cover holes in roofs and wood-fired stoves toheat homes.

Teras said he and his colleagues treat patients for "heart problems, diabetes, high blood pressure" problems exacerbated by malnutrition, stress, exposure to the elements and uncertainty about the future.

"Each city has special needs" after occupation, Teras said. "This city needs doctors, not just medicine."

Before the occupation, Lyman's rail station was an important hub, but is now heavily damaged. Many rails are shattered and electrical lines are shredded, complicating aid efforts.

But aside from the obvious physical scars left in the wake of the Russian occupation, less apparent, but irreversible, damage is slowly coming to light.

Ukrainian authorities say they have discovered two mass burial sites in Lyman, and a police officer guarding the adjacent sites saidinvestigators believe more than 400 individuals could be interred at the two locations.

One site is adorned with simple wooden grave markers, showing a mixture of old-age deaths several markers listed birthdates in the 1930s and 1940s while others suggested some deceased were born in the 1980s and 2010s.

Investigators are this week exhuming the bodies for identification and to determine cause of death. Of the dozens of bodies exhumed, some bear signs consistent with shrapnel wounds, while others found during the city's liberation appear to have died from a lack of medicine or food.

The detritus of Russia's occupation also still lines many of Lyman's streets. In addition to the letter Z, which has become emblematic of the Russian invasion, burnt military vehicles and discarded uniforms were seen on several street corners. One handwritten sign outside of a local barbershop still lists the price of a haircut during the occupation: "Haircut 150 rubles."

Those left also bear increasingly visible signs of Russia's occupation. At a hospital in Lyman, a doctor, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak with the media, explainedthat five girls, all 13 and 14 years old, came to the hospital recently, seeking to terminate pregnancies.

The girls are roughly "three to four months pregnant," he said, a timeline that coincides with the beginning of Lyman's occupation.

The girls were raped, the doctor said, and because their pregnancies are so far along, the hospital cannot administer abortions. "These are just the girls who came forward," he said, adding that he anticipates additional cases.

Back at Ivan's destroyed home, he salvages two objects: spare parts for his drones that looters overlooked and a book written by a friend about the beginning of Russia's war in Eastern Ukraine eight years ago.

After taking stock of his shattered home, Ivan has made up his mind: He won't rebuild in Lyman. But when asked where he will move after the war, he shrugs, skeptical the city could ever recover.

"I don't know," he said. "Not here."