We spoke about the current situation in occupied Novopskov and how the evacuated authorities are working now with Vadym Haev, the village head of Novopskov.
Vadym Haev: Our community now lives in an atmosphere of fear. It is very difficult to communicate with people (Russians) whose only argument is a machine gun. The occupiers did not come to build, and we understand that. Cases of local disappearances, illegal searches, home invasions, and inspections are unclear. All this is happening in our community.
We had a strong resistance against the invaders. In the first days, there were rallies. On the second day of the occupation, there was the largest rally where more than a thousand people attended. It was shot up by the Russians and there were a few injured.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WubtZ2pld6Q[/embedyt]
After this incident, no one had any doubts about the intentions of the invaders — they came with terror. Our people are not used to life with restrictions. We are used to living freely and that’s why people started leaving.
The occupiers were very surprised by the standard of living in our community, such as interactive black boards in the schools of the most remote villages, copying equipment, modern furniture. These things were stolen and transported away.
Vadym Haev: Now we are actively working to ensure and protect the legal rights of the employees of the settlement council. In the territories controlled by Ukraine, we launched the work of the village council apparatus back in May. We provide consultations, documents, appeals, answers, and references.
So far, we have certain issues in the departments of education and culture. Our employees are scattered all over Ukraine and this complicates the process of resuming work. However, we plan to launch all departments of our council soon. We work in the direction of providing humanitarian aid in any regional center. Currently, such an opportunity exists only in Dnipro.
We also have collaborators. There are cases when employees of the village council cooperated with the occupiers, for no reason. There was an opportunity to leave the community, but some decided not to use it, but to become traitors. I consider this a crime that should be punished as severely as possible.