The story of Serhii Dubinskyi from Izium, a survivor of his hometown’s occupation
AUTHOR:
Serhii Dubinskyi, a native resident of the city of Izium, Kharkiv Oblast, has had health problems since childhood and remains a person with a disability. He received social security and worked as a security guard at a sports complex, earning him enough money to support his sick mother and himself.
At 11 am on 14 July 2022, he was returning home from the market. Izium was already occupied by the Russian army but it wanted to destroy as much of the city as they could, and continued to shell it from time to time.
On the previous day, Serhii’s father-in-law was injured by a landmine. Enemy aircraft had littered them across almost a third of the central part of the city and surrounding areas. Fortunately, he survived, but suffered a leg wound.
It was not safe to be outside, at home or even the shelters, but Serhii had to get to his old mother, who was waiting for him.
The first explosion was a reasonable distance away and he was unscathed, but then cassettes, munitions that contain up to several hundred submunitions, came falling down. The blast wave knocked Serhii to the ground. He was unable to get back up as shell fragments had pierced his left thigh. However, he found the strength to move on his elbows and one knee to some nearby houses.
People helped him at the first entrance, giving him something to drink, treating his wounds and bandaging him as best they could. When the shelling stopped, Serhii was taken away by an ambulance. Ukrainian medics continued saving lives throughout incident, where at least 14 people were injured. The number of dead is not known.
“They did it on purpose: they fired at the education department, kindergartens, schools and the pension fund building. The Russian troops did this, even though they had been stationed in the city for a long time. They were just having fun destroying old buildings,” Serhii is convinced.
In the central district hospital, doctors treated Serhii's wounds and took an X-ray. He was given a wheelchair, on which he finally reached his mother. Neighbours with a car drove him to the medical centre for his wounds to be dressed. The wound has healed, but not without nerve damage.
“We didn’t have the medicines we need during the occupation. I began receiving proper treatment only after the Armed Forces of Ukraine liberated the city, when the necessary equipment and medicines were brought to the hospital and medical specialists returned,” Serhii explained.
Serhii also added that it would take several days to relate all the horrors that the Russians had perpetrated in Izium, things it is impossible to forget.
Serhii now lives with his mother in a private house, with three dogs in the yard. Communication problems, a lack of power and the cold have made people more resilient as they search for insulation materials, basic hygiene products and food. However, the people believe in the best and are delighted that the Ukrainian Armed Forces have liberated the city.
This material was created based on testimonies collected as part of the T4P (Tribunal for Putin) global initiative.
These pictures are created by artificial intelligence. They are NOT real. They are illustrations of the stories we tell. Most of these stories could not have been fixed by the camera. At the same time, there is documentary work by hundreds of Ukrainian and international photographers who produce real, and so much painful, documentation of this war. Check photographs by Oleksandr Glyadelov, Maksym Dondiuk, Mstyslav Chernov and Yevhen Malolietka, Andriy Dubchak, Yulia Kochetova, and many others.