Champagne and Soup
It started to rain halfway between Kharkiv and Izium. It’s a seventy-seven mile journey on a two or three-laner, running mainly straight across the rolling prairie. The road is enclosed for the full distance by drone nets to the sides and top, supported on poles. The limitations on their effectiveness are suggested by charred holes here and there, made by the Russians to admit their own drones and attack the traffic.
Rain is welcome. It makes for a quiet day, as FPV (first person view) drones rely on a camera for navigation, and the remote operator cannot see well enough when there is rain on the lens. So, on a wet day, the smaller drones, controlled in this way, just don’t fly.
We had left Kharkiv at 0500, before it got light. It’s the sort of a-bit-too-early scenario that always catches up with you later; and so we were feeling a bit deprived when we arrived in Izium at 0900. We had an hour before our first appointment, so we sought out a café in the city centre: a modernist concrete building next to a spectacularly rutted bomb site that served as a car-park. The drizzle did not make it any prettier. Inside, the colour scheme was dark wood and shades of grey-beige, the light from the windows being subdued by net curtains. We sat at our table in silence, awaiting our coffee, and took in the prospect seen in muted form through the windows.
Izium was taken by the Russians early in the war; it was 1st April 2022 when they gained control. The Battle of Izium which preceded it was hard-fought. You see destruction everywhere, with wrecked buildings, destroyed bridges and other infrastructure; many surfaces peppered by shrapnel, as a permanent reminder of a nightmare. But following the conquest, other, more terrible things happened, until, six months later, the Russians were thrown out. This is how Wikipedia summarises the end of Russian domination:
‘Ukraine began a counteroffensive in the Kharkiv region in early September 2022, during which Izium was recaptured. During the frantic Russian retreat, the Russian soldiers "completely gutted" the school that served as their base, looting "anything of possible value", including water heaters and small sinks from each classroom. After Ukrainian troops secured the liberated city, local police officers found mass graves of 440 bodies in Izium. According to city officials, by the end of the occupation, more than 80% of the city's infrastructure was destroyed; about 70% of multi-storey buildings are destroyed. The city administration estimates that all in all, about 1,000 people lost their lives under the Russian occupation.’
But now Izium, back in Ukrainian hands, has sprung back to life with energy. It is as though it has an adrenalin pump that drives it on. “I love Izium!” shouts a motto set in a floral display in a square in the city centre; the traffic is frenetic, its activity set against frequent squawks from sirens and general alerts on mobile phones that warn of incoming attacks from glide-bombs and drones. Today is a glide-bomb day. These are two-tonne bombs fitted with wings that extend their range. They arrive silently. There have been thirty-one attacks so far this morning, and it is only nine o’clock. Each impact summons ambulances, and they, conspicuous in yellow and green, rush hither and thither, burrowing through the traffic with their sirens going. They are British ambulances which have been donated, so the sights and sounds are oddly familiar.
"I love Izium"
Our coffee arrives. Across the room, a young woman sits alone. She is overweight and clearly has ceased to care about her appearance. In a morose way, she scrolls her phone, rarely pausing to look at what she had turned up. The waiter arrives at her table with a bottle of champagne (note the lack of a capital letter; this is not Champagne of the French variety). She begins to drink it methodically, continuing to scroll her phone, and oblivious to whatever was going on outside her personal bubble. It is just after nine in the morning. What can the rest of the day hold for her, and others such as her, who only stand and wait?
My colleagues, noticing her, look sad. One clicks his tongue. Alcohol! What a demon. But I wondered if she might not just be a case of dissipation, but in some way an involuntary dissolution of a person by the conflict that surrounds her. The alcohol just eases the way. Who knows what she had endured since 2022. Who knows what can have become of her home and loved ones. How would we handle such things, had we her misfortune?
By the time we left, nothing had changed except that the bottle was emptier. We picked our way across the streaming car park, and set off for two separate sessions in a village nearby. We found a patch of grass there to park our van and set up the burner, cauldron and tables that are the infrastructure of a soup kitchen. The van opened its rear doors and revealed two and a half tonnes of food parcels.
We had two separate sessions because Ukrainian law states that public assemblies are limited to fifty people. This is to prevent a large-scale catastrophe if there is an attack. We were expecting a hundred, so we had two groups. A village elder had a list on a clipboard. With elaborate ceremony, she ticked off the names.
The people arrived in dribs and drabs, mainly tidy, but with a depressed air. They told us that there had been two glide-bombs that morning just along the village street, with several houses destroyed and serious casualties. They described it with resignation, as an unfortunate aspect of life that could not be avoided. We prayed together for an end to the suffering, and for the strength to endure it while it lasted. This interaction, and the social occasion of soup seemed to remind them of good cheer, and smiles began to appear.
A young man lacking his left foot arrived, walking on crutches. He was no doubt a casualty of a land mine. He stood on his good leg, with his stump hooked over his crutch. He chatted a little but seemed distracted.
In his face I saw again the hopeless look of the woman in the café. War has its costs, some easily counted, others simply subtracted from lives.
James Mather Ukraine Chain Oct 2026 07836 715655 ukrainechain.org.uk * jsm@johnstonmather.com
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