LETTER FROM UKRAINE: THE COLLABORATORS

Taking sides during the Russian occupation of Izyum.

- JOSHUA YAFFA

It didn't take long for Russia's invasion to reach Izyum, a city of fifty thousand people on the Siverskyi Donets River, in eastern Ukraine. Within days, Russian warplanes were dropping heavy munitions on residential districts; by late March of last year, Russian tanks rumbled through the town center. As the Ukrainian Army retreated, it blew up the city's main bridge for automobile traffic, a futile attempt to slow the Russian advance which split Izyum in two: left bank and right bank, with only a pedestrian bridge and a pontoon crossing laid by Russian troops connecting one side with the other. A Russian officer known as Shere Khan, a nom de guerre borrowed from Kipling's "The Jungle Book," assumed the position of military commandant.

Russian forces installed several locals to run the city administration. A former police officer and failed mayoral candidate named Vladislav Sokolov took the post of acting mayor. He began appearing around town, trailed by a phalanx of Russian soldiers, boasting of repair works and food-aid deliveries. "We have huge plans, and Russia will lend us its support in realizing them," he was quoted as saying in the Izyum Telegraph, a newspaper published by the occupation authorities. Shelling and air strikes had left much of the city in ruins. Ukrainian officials estimated that eighty per cent of residential buildings had been damaged or destroyed. The electricity was out across town, which also meant that there was no water in the taps. A rocket had torn off a wall of the city's main hospital; doctors performed surgeries in the basement using a portable lamp powered by a diesel generator. Sokolov urged residents with relevant skills to come out from their bomb shelters and join the rebuilding effort. "We're experiencing a lack of manpower," he said.