Exclusive: Frontline village fearless in the face of Russian terrorism. Northern Kharkiv Oblast Mayor leads resistance against Putin's war criminals

Zolochiv, located 10 KM from Russia, holds firm against unrelenting attacks by Russia against the town's residents.

Kharkiv Oblast is a land filled with vast expanses of cropland, set amongst rolling hills and blue skies. A region so picturesque that the flag of Ukraine could have sprung fully formed from its fertile fields. Yet against this backdrop, lurks an immovable evil. 

Russia. 

While Ukraine’s second city, Kharkiv is located a still close 40 kilometers from the Russian border, the town of Zolochiv sits a mere 10 kilometers away. Home to a community hospital that serves a resilient population, and a grocery store that acts as the main hub of shopping for almost 10,000 Ukrainians, Zolochiv has been subjected to continuous, unrelenting shelling, bombing, and other terrorist attacks from Putin’s war criminals since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

In the face of yet another week of death and destruction, the town’s brave and honorable Mayor Viktor Kovalenko, welcomed the International Committee of the Red Cross to his ever-suffering hamlet. 

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And a day that began with much promise descended into despair by late afternoon. 

Having visited Zolochiv once before, during the third week of June, the ICRC was familiar with the risks involved with visiting again. Based on the group's vast experience in providing on-the-ground assistance to civilians in conflict areas across the globe, along with the presumed inviolability of their symbol, the Red Cross’s security team approved the group’s sub-delegation from Poltava to bring more than 20 tons of supplies directly to Zolochiv's beleaguered civilian population. 

Arriving in a convoy that included several SUVs sporting the organization’s iconic symbol, along with a tractor-trailer that hauled the massive amount of aid, the Red Cross representatives were welcomed as honored guests and visiting heroes.

Upon pulling up in front of the community sports hall, which is now being utilized as a  humanitarian supply hub, throngs of volunteers poured from the building to lend assistance in unloading the more than 960 boxes of individual food donations, and 100’s more containing hygiene products.

Hours passed, the truck emptied out, and just moments after the town’s vice mayor signed off on the delivery and the ICRC employees said their goodbyes to the Mayor, thunderous claps filled the sky. 

With Zolochiv’s entire leadership structure present, including the fire chief and emergency operation head, and journalists from Austria and Australia present, Mayor Kovalenko wasted no time in ordering everyone to take shelter.

For more than forty minutes in the early afternoon, a barrage of rockets, mortars, and artillery shells reigned down on the ever-tormented residents. 

From his temporary headquarters, the Mayor coordinated responses based on the short-handed, coded updates he received on his phone from those in the field. 

In real-time, learning that one area local lost her leg and several others were injured, the indomitable Kovalenko led a steady, even-handed response to the barbaric terrorism that was being inflicted upon the lands he governed. 

The strikes eventually waned, ultimately stopping, after at least 10 grad rockets struck inside Zolochiv’s borders. 

With more than 50 civilians having died in and around Zolochiv due to attacks by Russia’s barbaric forces since February 24, it was miraculous that no one was added to the tally during the attacks on the 20 of July.

Days later, at a press conference held in Kharkiv by the Oblast’s Governor, Oleh Synyehubov, it was revealed by the Governor that he and Kovalenko engaged in discussions relating to regional government support that could be provided to Zolochiv during the ongoing war of Russian aggression. This includes construction materials and other supplies intended to allow the town to remain steadfast against the ever-present terrorist threat. 

Governor Synehubov went on to say that despite the village’s proximity to both Russia to its north and the fluid frontlines to its east, there was no plan in place at the moment to order an evacuation. 

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From being chosen to receive relief efforts by one of the world’s most esteemed humanitarian agencies to being selected as a localized target of Russian genocide against Ukraine in the span of an afternoon, Zolochiv, and the people who comprise it personifies the horrific and bold fearlessness that comes with to existing as a Ukrainian town on the Russian border during war.