The mass graves of Ukrainians killed by the Russians during the occupation, discovered in Izyum, became another clear evidence of the genocide of the Ukrainian nation. Every day, new terrible facts are revealed: the bodies of people are found with their hands tied and traces of torture, among the dead are whole families, old people, small children.
Last week, the media spread a terrible frame of the graves of the Stolpakov family. In this family, 8 people died at once: Elena Stolpakova, her husband, two little daughters, a younger sister, parents and grandmother. All of them died as a result of an air strike by Russians on a high-rise building on Pervomaiskaya Street. A Russian missile destroyed the building on the morning of March 9, killing 52 civilians. Some of the dead did not live there, but with the outbreak of war they came there to their relatives - hoping that this place would be safer than in other settlements attacked by rockets and bombs.
“When I saw what happened to the basement where my family was, I immediately understood everything”
Mikhail Yatsentyuk he doesn’t know how he managed to survive. At the moment when the Russian rocket flew into the high-rise building at 2 Pervomaiskaya, Mikhail was in the basement of this house with his family: 64-year-old wife Natalia, 38-year-old daughter Olga, 37-year-old son-in-law Vitaly, 14-year-old and 9- th. one-year-old grandchildren Dima and Alexei, 3-year-old granddaughter Arina and 96-year-old grandmother Zinaida Vasilievna. Only Michael survived. The whole family died before his eyes.
- We were all together in the basement, - tells Michael. - On the morning of March 9, my wife and I cooked porridge. We all had breakfast together, after which my three-year-old granddaughter Arina asked: “Grandfather, please give me some tea.” I took a thermos and went out to the landing. The wife said: “Misha, I’m coming with you.” But she didn’t get out. There was an explosion.
I was thrown back by the blast, and I do not know how long I was unconscious - maybe about half an hour. When he came to his senses, he saw that he was stuck up to the waist in a metal ladder, which he himself had once welded. My legs were crushed by concrete blocks. I somehow immediately managed to pull out one, and the second was pressed down, it seemed, tightly. I was saved by a book stuck between my leg and a concrete slab. And the fact that water began to flow from the boiler on one of the upper floors. The book quickly got wet, I was able to pull it out, after which I pulled out my leg. Then he tried to climb through the concrete block for a long time and was able to do it.
When I saw what happened to the basement where my family was, I immediately understood everything. There was no longer any hope - everything was littered with concrete slabs. I called my wife several times: Natasha! Not a sound in reply. I couldn’t believe this happened. What did they die? That no wife, no children, no grandchildren - no one … It seemed that this could not be true, that this was a terrible dream. I called for help. One person came to my cry, but when the plates began to fall from above again, he quickly left. I got out into the street. In two sweatpants, two sweatshirts and barefoot. It’s minus 10 outside… I spent the next three days at my neighbor’s dacha. Due to the fact that it was cold there and I had to sleep practically on the street, I caught a cold in my kidneys. But none of that mattered anymore.
When at the end of the month, on March 30, they finally began to dismantle the rubble on Pervomaiskaya, Mikhail was there. Day and night he was at the ruined house, hoping to find his family.
- On April 12, they found a wife, daughter, son-in-law and grandmother, - says Michael. - And on the 13th in the morning they received grandchildren. First Dimka, then Alyosha and Arina. It was difficult to recognize them, but I found out… The guys from the funeral home carried their bodies to the other side of the Seversky Donets: I wanted to bury them in the cemetery of my eldest daughter, who died of cancer in 2014. He buried his wife and grandmother separately. And Olya with Vitalik and the children in a common grave. We made one big coffin for them…
Olya, Vitalik and the children did not live on Pervomaiskaya Street, they had an apartment elsewhere. But at the beginning of March, the children came to us. We decided it was best to stick together. We also took in our 96-year-old grandmother, my wife’s own aunt. Zinaida Vasilievna was completely sane, she could walk, she herself went down to the basement. She remembered the Second World War and was shocked that the Russians were now killing us. A few days before all this happened, my son Sasha came. He was going to Cherkassy and wanted to take out at least Olya with the children. Olya agreed at first, but changed her mind in the morning. Sasha left, and now he is the only one from our family who is still alive.
It so happened that when the war began, people did not leave our house on Pervomaiskaya, but rather the opposite - people came to visit him. Relatives from Kharkov came to someone, to someone from other, as it seemed then, more dangerous places. That is why it turned out that entire families perished, several generations each … We know for sure that 52 people were under the rubble. But we never found seven of them. Many of those present were unrecognizable. We recognized people by phone numbers - if we found a phone nearby, rearranged the SIM card, called neighbors, the number was determined - and we found out what kind of person it was. I recognized one woman by the keys found on her - I found the door to which she approaches, and I realized that this was our neighbor Lyudmila … Nikolai Fedorchenko was recognized by the passport that they found on him. We found our neighbor Kolya Rybalko in his arms with his wife Elena. They loved each other very much, signed shortly before the war. So they died together, embracing … The worst thing was to recognize the children. Girls from the Stolpakov family… My grandchildren and grandchildren. Arina was three. Alyosha on March 30, the day of Alexei, should have turned ten. But Dimka did not live up to his 15th birthday for nine days … I still don’t know why and why I stayed alive. And how to live now…
See also: “The hand of my husband is a symbol of dignity and courage of the Ukrainian warrior”: his wife told about the fighter whose body was found in Izyum
“There were no objects nearby, the Reichists fired accurately at this house, where there were more than fifty civilians”
- Everyone who was in this basement died, - told Tatyana - a resident of the housewhich a few days before the missile strike managed to leave Izyum - For most, it was instant death. And one of our neighbors, as we already know, lay alive under concrete slabs for three days. But she had no one to help, and she also died. Only a few survived: three people who were in another basement near the first entrance, and several neighbors who did not go down to the shelter and stayed in their apartments. For example, Lyudmila Grigoryevna and her son Sergei were in the apartment on the ground floor at the time of arrival. They began to fall down, but Sergei somehow managed to hold on and pulled his mother out. They survived, and his mother is now the only one who lives in the surviving part of our destroyed house. In another apartment, a man survived, who was in the bathroom at the time of the explosion. His wife, who was in the room, died.
My mother died under the rubble. My daughter and I failed to persuade her to leave with us. Shortly before the war, she had a stroke, and she was afraid that she would not survive the trip. In addition, when we left, there was not yet so much shooting on this coast, and many hoped that it was safer here. But the situation quickly changed. When we called my mother on the morning of March 6, she said that they were already shooting so hard that it was impossible even for a minute to leave the basement. This was our last conversation. I managed to say that I love her very much … Since then, we have had no connection with either my mother or with the neighbors. And on March 10, we were informed that our house had taken shape. We didn’t believe. Until the last, we hoped that this was some kind of mistake … But no. Rashists destroyed it with a rocket. There were no objects nearby, they aimed at this house, where there were more than fifty civilians.
It breaks my heart at the thought of each of the dead. We had very friendly great neighbors. We were friends, constantly talking in our chat. It was called “Khutorok” - like our condominiums. The wife of our AJOAH chairman Nikolai Petrovich left and wanted to take him with her. But he refused: “People are sitting in the basement, I can’t leave them.” Remained as the captain of the ship. Died along with everyone. Another neighbor, when the war began, had a son from Kharkov. All three were killed… The spouses Andrei and Natasha Yakovenko, when the war began, came to this house to their mother. I had to inform their daughter that they were dead. She recently got a tattoo: the letters A and H are the first letters of her parents’ names. My mother was recognized by a fragment of her forearm… She was buried at number 283. The Stolpakov family, where their parents died, their two little daughters, as well as the girls’ grandmother, grandfather, great-grandmother and aunt, were recognized by their tattoos. Seven were never identified. Perhaps now, during the exhumation, something will become clear.
It hurts me to talk about it. It hurts to see a neighbor chat where most of our neighbors will never go back and write anything there. It hurts to think about the beloved Izyum, which the rashists almost destroyed. By the way, people who stayed there during the occupation told how the Russians, already realizing that the Armed Forces of Ukraine were approaching, robbed everything they could. They even took carpets from our house. Dirty dusty carpets from destroyed apartments…
Recall that the Kremlin cynically commented on the Izyum tragedy, saying that it was a provocation and a hyped scenario.
Header photo: Mikhail’s family: Olga and Vitaly Kravchenko and their three children - Dima, Alyosha and Arina
Source: Fakty
