Thirteen days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, humanitarian corridors set up in Irpin, a small town northwest of Kiev, had little of the humanity that their name carries.
With the advance of Russian forces towards the capital, both Irpin and the city of Bucha became the main battlegrounds between the Muscovite Army and the Ukrainian resistance forces, which, in addition to the military, also have civilians armed with machine guns and hastily trained.
Many of them gathered on Tuesday morning (8) to evacuate elderly people from a nursing home located hundreds of meters from where the Russians set up a checkpoint, with soldiers and armored cars, on the long avenue that makes Irpin a major artery leading to Kiev.
At high speed, panting and nervous, driving passenger cars, school vans, ambulances and vans normally used for transporting goods, men like Vladi, a 52-year-old Ukrainian, left the asylum carrying weakened and frightened elderly people, walking with difficulty or pushed around in their wheelchairs, some lying on gurneys, dragged in makeshift hammocks with sheets or grabbed by the clothes they wore, jackets bigger than their bodies.
The frequent noise of explosions in the background reminded that the time for retreat was short. Under the bridge over the river Irpin, destroyed by an air strike — potentially Ukrainian, in an attempt to make it difficult for Russian invaders to enter the country’s capital — civilians were carrying elderly people who could not walk.
Unable to go down the muddy stairs to the part below the bridge, a lady, tired from having walked a dozen meters over what was left of the building now full of abandoned and bomb-burned cars, asked for someone to help her reach the bottom of the stairs with your bag and cane. “Help me! Help me!” she cried, crying.
By late afternoon, the streets of Irpin were virtually empty. Vladi and his friends no longer returned with cars crammed with people. The cold and the strong wind, combined with the snow, worsened the feeling of discomfort of those who fled with only a few belongings.
The mortar explosions launched by the Ukrainian forces came closer. From not far away, you could hear the dry sound of bombs exploding, you could see clouds of smoke and dust raised by mortars thrown in areas where there were only houses that, at that moment, might already have been empty.
The elderly rescued this Tuesday in Irpin can be counted as an asset in the mathematics of war. President Vladimir Putin, aware of this, even proposed that Ukrainian civilians coming from areas affected by the conflicts have access to humanitarian corridors that would take them to Russia, something that was considered immoral by the governments of Ukraine and other European countries, such as France. .
While political negotiations do not advance, the Russian army continues to attack with missiles, as well as fighting continues in the main cities of the country. In Irpin, until late in the afternoon, the corridors, even with such inhumanity, had fulfilled their function: to empty the city.
Now Russian and Ukrainian forces will be able to fight and, ironically, continue the war.
