Special Project: Director of the Starobilsk MVA Yana Litvinova: We are ready to resume work after deoccupation

An exclusive interview of Yana Litvinova, head of the Starobilsk city military administration, as part of a joint special project of the Interfax-Ukraine news agency and East Europe Foundation “Community Experience”. Its purpose is to show the experience of Ukrainian communities in the adaptation and integration of forcibly internally displaced persons in order to increase the efficiency of the work of local self-government bodies.

Read more about effective involvement with IDPs in the free online course “Adaptation and integration of IDPs: experience and opportunities” on the educational "Zrozumilo!" platform.

Author: Oleksandr Trokhymchuk

The city of Starobilsk has been under temporary occupation since the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Russia. What was your morning on February 24, 2022 like?

My morning began with a phone call. The voice on the receiver said that in a few hours war would be officially declared. At that moment I did not even process this information. But I was ready and packed, because on the 23rd, the leaders of the district and I sat in the district state administration, in the building opposite the city council, and discussed that we need to issue summons and ready the military. And this call, it broke my life and, as it turned out later, it broke the lives of many people.

We gathered in the city council, in the administration, and officially discussed what measures we would take, as well as whether we would remain in the city or evacuate.

You lived under occupation for about a month. Why didn't you leave?

Objectively: the legislation generally does not provide any protocol of procedures by which we would comprehend what a government body, a local autonomous governing body,