Special Project: Mayor of Trostianets, Yurii Bova: A nation so organized is impossible to defeat: it knows what it is fighting for!

An exclusive interview of the mayor of Trostianets, Yurii Bova, within the joint special project of Information Agency Interfax Ukraine and East Europe Foundation “Community Experience” (Dosvid hromad). Its purpose is to show the most outstanding examples of adaptation and integration of internally displaced persons in order to improve the efficiency of local self-government bodies.

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

Author: Oleksandr Trokhymchuk

For the period of a month, from the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Trostianets was under occupation. What went on in those first days?

From the beginning, we did not understand the process at all. Even if the russians come in and occupation begins, what would it be like? Will twenty soldiers enter, or a hundred? And when thousands pile in to the city, when two columns of russian heavy machinery comes in, with over a hundred pieces of machinery per column (including around forty tanks in each), you begin to understand that you're defenseless: there are no armed forces in the city, no weapons – nothing.

Right away mobile connection disappears, there is no communication – there is panic all around. We understand that the same situation is happening in other cities, Kyiv, etc. And this wave of stress forces us to solve a multitude of problems at the same time. Many people crowd the mayor, demanding to know what to do. Hundreds of people require an answer, but there isn't one.

The russian amy entered Trostianets at 11 in the morning (24 Feb, 2022 – IF-U). And to the first outlying suburb, even earlier. So from the