The sidewalk that the 81-year-old is cleaning is part of Moscow Street. It is located just around the corner from the regional administration headquarters that was destroyed by a Russian air strike on Tuesday, killing 20 people, injuring dozens of others and shaking the surrounding city squares. “I can not explain it to myself, because there are massacres by people who are sent here,” said Nikolai. “We are still brothers.”
But trying to tell relatives in Russia what Moscow is doing in Ukraine is like talking to a “zombie,” he said.
“I was calling my nephew and he said, ‘I do not believe it.’ This is your propaganda. These are your troops bombing yourself. Anatoli Nikolai, 81, is trying to clear the damage from an air raid that shook the city squares. (Jason Ho / CBC)

An unexpected and hard resistance

Mykolaiv is a predominantly Russian-speaking city with almost 500,000 inhabitants, although many have left since the invasion began on February 24. The Kremlin expected its troops to meet little resistance here, but instead, the battle for this strategic territory has been established. In the past, Mykolaiv was one of the largest shipbuilding centers of the Russian Empire and the headquarters of its navy in the Black Sea for more than 100 years.
Today, the city enjoys heroic status among Ukrainians because it has been repelling – for weeks – Russian forces trying to advance west along the southern coast to Odessa from Hersonissos, the only major Ukrainian city under full Russian control. . If Russia were to attempt an amphibious landing to occupy Odessa, Ukraine’s largest Black Sea port and key strategic advantage, it would need a supply route from Kherson, most analysts suggest. But Hersonissos is about 70 kilometers east of Mykolaiv, and as fighting continues in the area between the cities, the Ukrainians claim they continue to succeed in repelling the Russians.
This success, however, came at a heavy price. According to local reports, the airstrike hit the building as people were starting their work day. (Jason Ho / CBC)
On Wednesday, Vitaliy Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region, known as the administrative district, said 134 civilians from the region had been killed since the beginning of the conflict, including six children.
Kim is widely regarded as a thorn in the side of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Appointed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and extremely popular, Kim regularly posts on social media, mocking the Kremlin and the tactics of the Russians, whom he dismisses as an “oath”.
Mykola district governor Vitaly Kim says there have been 134 casualties in the area since the February 24 invasion. (Jean-François Bisson / CBC)
His Telegram channel has about 700,000 followers and he starts his videos with “Good day, we are from Ukraine” and flashes a sign of peace.
This relaxed style of pressure has been credited with helping to keep people calm.

“Citizens are heroes”

Kim says he escaped Tuesday’s air raid on regional headquarters because he slept too much. The rocket hit just as people were starting their work day.
“I do not care about buildings and papers,” he told a news conference the day after the strike. “The main problem is [the death of] citizens who are heroes and who [were] working during the war “.
Dr Andrew Rozhok, chief neurosurgeon at the hospital who treated the seriously injured, said specialists had operated on five people injured in the attack.
“These were big companies,” he said, noting that three people were in “extremely critical condition.” Rozok said the city’s hospitals have come under increasing pressure to deal with civilian and military casualties in recent weeks.
CLOCKS The political cost to keep Mykolaiv:

The cost of the tough resistance of a Ukrainian city against Russian forces

Ukrainian forces in the southern city of Mykolaiv have been able to prevent Russian troops from advancing, but at a cost – a Russian airstrike destroyed part of a regional government building in the city on Tuesday, and officials expect the attacks to intensify. 2:29
The neurosurgeon says that although he is terrified that civilians remain under fire and besieged, he has faith in the Ukrainian leadership to defeat Russia.
“Everything will go well, everything will go well,” he said. “We have the will, we have diligence and, most importantly, we want freedom.
“We want to be free.”

Tires, explosives and Molotov cocktails

This determination can be seen in the piles of tires that are ready in almost every neighborhood in Mykolaiv, with Molotov cocktails placed nearby in case the Russians try to enter the city.
And locals will tell you that the main bridge over the Southern Bug River, which runs west to Odessa, is equipped with explosives – and is ready to be blown up to prevent Russians from crossing if it does.
Some in the city are worried that Ukrainian successes around Mykolaiv will inevitably encourage the Russians to use even more brutal tactics to try to occupy Odessa.
Andrei Shevchenko, the local commander of Mykolaiv’s territorial defense units, says he believes Ukraine will win this war, but not without much more civilian casualties. (Jason Ho / CBC)
“They failed to come through our city,” said Andrei Shevchenko, the local commander of Mykolaiv’s territorial defense units.
“That’s why they are angry with us … and they started bombing and bombing us. In Kharkov, it’s the same,” he said, referring to the northeastern city along Ukraine’s border with Russia, which has been hit by airstrikes. raids from the beginning of the invasion.

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Shevchenko accuses the Russians of deliberately bombing civilian areas in Mykolaiv and, more specifically, of violating international law by using cluster munitions that emit numerous “bombs” during the strike.
In the neighborhood of Urochyshche Raketne, where many families keep cottages to plant small gardens, Shevchenko pointed to a metal fence filled with small holes. Two small craters can be seen in the garden on the other side where the ammunition is believed to have landed, possibly delivered by a multi-launcher missile system.
A woman in her 40s was killed in the house next door when a shell went through her roof, Shevchenko said. A recent report by Human Rights Watch also documented reports of cluster munitions attacks in Mykolaiv, including fragments of weapons deemed compatible with multi-launcher missile systems. Firefighters carry a dead body from the rubble of a government building hit by Russian missiles in Mykolaiv. (Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty Images)
Shevchenko says Ukrainian troops have pushed Russian positions away from the city, about 40 kilometers away.
But he also says ground battles will prove fruitless unless Western nations agree to “close the skies” to Russian bombing.
“We can conquer Russians on land, but not in the air because we do not have the means to shoot down planes and missiles,” he said. Asked if this means Ukraine will lose, he pauses – but then answers that Ukraine will win. There is, however, a reservation. “With great sacrifices,” he says, describing his response. “Especially among civilians.” CLOCKS War has a heavy physical and emotional cost to children:

The youngest victims of the war in Ukraine

Inside the Okhmatdyt Children’s Hospital in Kyiv, exhausted medical staff removes shrapnel, restores limbs and sutures war wounds to Ukrainian children. The hospital’s press secretary, Anastasia Magerramova, says the hospital is displaying images of children to let people know the truth about the war in Ukraine. 14:44