The Devastation of Kharkiv, Ukraine

Russian attacks have terrorized the civilian population in the Ukrainian city.
​​​​​​The building of the National Academy of State Administration of the President of Ukraine was destroyed by a...
​​​​​​The building of the National Academy of State Administration of the President of Ukraine was destroyed by a Russian military attack.Magnum

Some cities are charming, some are precious, some are majestic. Kharkiv was eclectic and sure of itself in the way that only a large cosmopolitan city can be. It had old blocks with crooked streets and mazes of courtyards and it had broad, straight avenues that seemed to stretch forever. It had buildings that spanned several city blocks. It had the largest square in Ukraine, called Freedom Square, and laid claim to having the biggest market in Eastern Europe, Barabashovo, where people from all over Ukraine came to buy household goods, clothes, and more. Its opera theatre, home to the oldest permanent opera company in Ukraine, was a radical giant slab of a building, constructed in the nineteen-twenties. Its recently reconstructed zoo attracted weekend crowds from many miles away.

Firefighters search for bodies in the regional-administration building, which was heavily bombed and shelled by Russian forces.
A woman wounded by shrapnel when two missiles hit a market. Minutes later, an ambulance arrived.
An office building behind Freedom Square encased in icicles.
A view inside the regional-administration building.

I visited Kharkiv less than a month before Russian missiles started striking it. Most of the people I met there—and all of the men whom I met there—told me that they, and the city, were ready for war. They thought they knew what war was. A Russian-orchestrated attempt to take over the city had failed in 2014, but, just to the east of Kharkiv, an occupation regime was established, and a shooting war went on for eight years. A giant blue-and-yellow tent in Freedom Square, with a banner that said “Everything for victory,” stood as a stubborn reminder that the war wasn’t over. Then Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began. Within a few weeks, Kharkiv was unrecognizable.