A Ukrainian security guard shares how time has stopped at a grain elevator.
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They were just driving through. I think they had an observation post here. Because we found points where snipers had set up at the weighing station and at the dryer, as those are the highest spots.
This is TESSLAGROUP’s grain storage located in the north of the Kherson region, which was liberated by the Ukrainian army. There is practically nothing left of the grain elevator now. The director Serhiy Viktorovych shows us the ruins of the facility.
This territory was occupied until October last year. Serhiy, a security guard at the elevator, remembers how it all began.
At first, they didn’t enter the premises. They just peeked in. One of them said: if I see you without a white armband (it was an identification mark), I will shoot you. Sometimes they shot machine guns into the sky to scare me. I lived in occupation for a month, but when they started knocking down doors and demanding vodka, gasoline, and other things, then I took my family and went across the river to the territories where our forces were deployed.
After the Ukrainian army’s offensive, the Russians decided to shell the elevator while running away. The asset itself and more than 200,000 bushels of grain stored there burned.
A local resident recalled that when the Russians were fleeing, they flattened everything. They turned the tank around and fired a few shells at the elevator. And then aviation destroyed what was left. The bomb craters still remain.
We are talking to that same local resident.
The elevator was shelled on July 15. 4 hits were enough to destroy the buildings. The grain was burning and smoking for almost six months.
It is symbolic that the date on the elevator’s calendar is still February 24, 2022.
Look, it’s February 24. It seems like time has stopped. No one was turning the calendar anymore.
That report was powered by Latifundist Media, with USAID support provided through Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities (AGRO) Activity implemented in Ukraine by Chemonics International. For more information, visit their website or follow them on social media.
