Last Monday, the association Stand with Ukraine travelled to Ovroutch, a small Ukrainian town close to the Belarusian frontier, accompanied by Mr Thibaut Guignard, Mayor of the municipality of Ploeuc l’Hermitage and Vice-President of the Urban Area of Saint-Brieuc. This visit came a week after a journey by the Vice-Mayor of Ovroutch accompanied by other Ukrainian Mayors to Saint-Brieuc.
We arrive in Ovroutch after a two hour drive, and are welcomed by the Mayor and Vice-Mayor of the municipality, with whom the friendship links created virtually and subsequently in France guarantee a joyful reunion! We are honoured to be offered a traditional welcome with special bread. Before the war this municipality of 35,000 people was known for its landscape of fields and forest, rare stones and tourism.
At the town hall we hear about the authorities’ constant vigilance faced by the threat of an enemy who approached close to the town – in the early days of the invasion the aggressor was repelled by the territorial defense of Ovroutch. Describing the suffering of his municipality, the Mayor conveys to France and to the Urban Area of Saint-Brieuc his gratitude for their solidarity. The strikes destroyed 180 buildings, and killed 120 people.
However, as throughout Ukraine in the last year, determination to rebuild is paramount: missile fragments have been collected by the town’s fire service, the creation of coloured straw tableaux at the academy of popular art has recommenced under the sharp gaze of its director Mr Ivanovitch, and a brand new kindergarten is being built. There are clouds in the sky, but the glacial Ukrainian February is long over.
