For weeks, Aljona Lapchuk of Kherson searched desperately for her husband – until his body was recovered from the river. Vitali disappeared after interrogation by the Russian occupiers, the 54-year-old reported on the phone. The Ukrainian port city fell to Moscow a few days after the war started and has since been almost completely cut off from the outside world.
Reports like Lapchuk’s provide a shocking insight into the plight of the local population, they cannot be verified. When Russia invaded Ukraine, Lapchuk says her husband rushed home from Kiev to help defend Kherson. On March 27, about three weeks after the fall of the city, he disappeared.
“I called him over and over,” reports the widow, but he never picked up. At some point, the calls were pushed away. “That’s when I realized there was a problem,” says Laptschuk.
Dragged out of the car covered in blood
Moments later, at 1 a.m., three cars stopped in front of her house marked with a Z, the symbol of the Russian invaders. The soldiers dragged Vitali out of one of the cars, his face covered in blood. She barely recognized her husband, explains Laptschuk.
The men entered the home at gunpoint, taking laptops and cell phones. They had promised him “not to harm the family,” her husband said – those were his only words. “Then they pulled bags over my head, my husband and my oldest son,” she says. “I will never forget the look Vitali gave me at that moment. It was the last time we saw each other,” Lapchuk recalled with sadness.
Vitali’s body found in river
After an interrogation, mother and son were dropped off under a bridge – without the father. For more than two months, the family did not know what had happened to him. On June 9, she learned that fishermen had found Vitali’s body at the bottom of a river, his feet weighted down with a stone.
The story of the Lapchuk family does not seem to stand alone. Other residents also report abducted and missing persons. The Russian domestic secret service FSB and the special task force SOBR of the Russian National Guard are in Kherson, Tatiana, who does not want to give her last name, reported via a secure VPN connection from the city.
Tick ”ID cards, phones and bags”
“They show up and just take people out without any explanation,” she says. “Some come back, some don’t.” Tatjana tells of countless checkpoints where the occupiers checked “ID cards, telephones and bags”.
During a visit to Kherson organized by Moscow earlier this month, an AFP reporter observed few soldiers in the center but many checkpoints on the outskirts.
Residents resist occupation
In protest against the occupiers, residents repeatedly painted Ukrainian flags on the streets or hung ribbons in the trees in the national colors yellow and blue, Tatyana said. “It’s very difficult for the Russians to stop that.” Residents also opposed the introduction of the Russian ruble and continued to pay in Ukrainian hryvnia, she says.
Alyona Lapchuk, the widow, has since fled Kherson to a safe place in Ukraine. She is firmly convinced that the Russian occupier will one day be driven out of the city. Then Lapchuk wants to return – and set up a bench next to her husband’s grave. “I can talk to him there again,” she says.
Source: Krone
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
