This is exactly the topic that is of interest to many of our cities and villages that are still under occupation and are waiting for liberation.
In Kyiv, at the conference “First Steps After Deoccupation“, representatives of the Verkhovna Rada, the Government, local administrations and municipal services, the State Emergency Service, and military units discussed what should be done when Ukrainian cities are liberated.
I shared the experience of Trostyanets, which was the first in Ukraine to be liberated by joint efforts on March 26, 2022 after 31 days of occupation.
At the same time, I would like to remind you that Trostyanets was occupied by troops of the Western Military District of the Russian Federation as part of the Kantemirovskaya and Tamanskaya divisions of the 1st Tank Army, many other units with their command staff.
Because of this, it was not easy to knock them out of Trostyanets, and the consequences of this month for the community were terrible.
More than 1,500 damaged and destroyed infrastructure and housing facilities.
The city was completely looted, with not a single surviving computer left in the administrative institutions…
49 citizens were murdered, tortured.
All municipal vehicles were damaged or stolen…
No water, electricity, or heating for almost 1.5 months…
Most administrative institutions, forest plantations, cemeteries, and enterprises were mined.
A food crisis, as almost all shops were looted and most were destroyed…
This is not the entire list of problems that had to be dealt with to get the city out of the crisis after the Russian invasion.
It was still necessary to organize food supplies in the unoccupied territories closest to the city, and after liberation, rapid transportation to the city and the work of humanitarian centers in each neighborhood for the systematic distribution of aid.
Exhumation of the bodies of all the killed and deceased.
To return people to their jobs and organize the work of all services from scratch, quickly starting the restoration of damaged facilities: kindergartens, schools, hospitals, water supply systems, power grids, transport…
And most importantly, we managed to maximally protect people in administrative buildings, at enterprises, from explosions on numerous stretchers. Also, we prevented looting of enterprises and institutions, ensuring the security of every important facility and enterprise and compliance with the curfew by the forces of the DFTG…
We also actively helped the Armed Forces of Ukraine organize the defense system of the Sumy region.
It is impossible to list all the work that was done here.
And I thank everyone who was there and helped bring Trostyanets out of a total crisis. This is truly the City Revival Team, which has been working tirelessly every day for the second year.
As a result, more than 95% of residents have returned to the city. IDPs from other cities and villages of the Kharkiv region, Sumy region, and Donbas are also actively coming to us.
And we will completely restore our community!
Together with the state and active residents!
Thank you to the Armed Forces of Ukraine for making it possible to revive the city and villages!
But the first months after de-occupation are very difficult and important.
Therefore, thank you to the organizers of the conference, the international foundation “Partnership for a Strong Ukraine” and other donors. Donbass and Crimea should already be preparing and we are ready to share our experience!
