"I often have the same dream: that I'm trying to get home, says Elena Lebedeva, setting out tea and sandwiches in the tiny kitchen of her rented flat. There's always some checkpoint, obstacle, something in the way. I keep going walking, running, crawling but I never manage to reach it. Home for Lebedeva is Opytne, a tiny village one school, no supermarkets just outside Donetsk."
"Lebedeva's neighbour, known as Uncle Sasha, died in his basement, where he'd been living since his house was destroyed. Perhaps he fell from the ladder or suffered a heart attack. By the time his body was found, rats had eaten his hands. Three people had been sitting on a bench outside their apartment building when a mortar shell struck them directly. Neighbours gathered what was left of their bodies, but constant bombing meant they could not stay outside long enough to dig their graves."
"Lebedeva herself was injured in the summer of 2022, when an artillery shell landed in her back yard and shrapnel pierced her back and buttocks. That might have saved her life after being hospitalised, she was unable to return home and, with her husband, Rodion, relocated west to the city of Kryvyi Rih. Until then, they had stubbornly remained in Opytne. The village had been stranded between frontlines and cut off from the outside world since 2014."
Elena Lebedeva frequently dreams of trying to reach her home in Opytne but never succeeds because of checkpoints and obstacles. Opytne is a tiny village near Donetsk with one school and no supermarkets that was stranded between frontlines and cut off since 2014. Roughly 30 people remained as Russian troops advanced; some died alone in basements, others were killed by direct mortar strikes. Neighbours struggled to recover and bury remains amid constant bombing. Lebedeva was wounded by an artillery shell in summer 2022 and, after hospitalization, relocated west with her husband to Kryvyi Rih.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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