With a jerk of his shoulder, Vitali opens the worm-eaten wooden door of his house. ” Since the bombing, not a single door closes properly “he sighs, his voice hoarse. The frail, elegant-looking old man gingerly enters the cluttered corridor of his home. ” My parents bought it when I was 10. years old. It’s a miracle that it’s still standing after the bombing. “he says. On August 31, a Russian warhead crashed into the asphalt of the nearby road, some thirty meters away, destroying doors and windows and shaking the walls of his home. For more than two months, Vitali has been patching up his house and preparing it for the coming winter, which, at Kharkivis often synonymous with temperatures below -10°C.

With a gesture of his finger, he points to the large gaps in the walls, filled with polystyrene blocks and fruit juice bricks…