Father Mykola Dovgan, 56, a battalion chaplain, tells MarketWatch about his family's treacherous journey to flee Ukraine.
Kyiv, UKRAINE — Artillery shells exploded around 56-year-old Orthodox priest Father Mykola Dovgan as he pushed his son, Sergey, in a wheelchair along the empty country road in southern Ukraine.
But on that fateful and terrifying day Mykola told MarketWatch that his normally implacable manner dissolved into desperation. He led his family through an intense barrage of artillery fire between Ukrainian and Russian army positions outside his home in Kherson, a city in southern Ukraine now under Russian occupation.
Time was their enemy, but it was God who Mykola blamed. He had seen three years of war as a chaplain but still found himself screaming. “It was an explosion of nerves, a scream from my soul,” he recalled, “I screamed at God. How could he do such a thing to me and my family? How could He even exist?” When his fellow Orthodox priest Father Serhiy Chudynovych was kidnapped and tortured, however, the alarm sounded in the local Orthodox community. Chudynovych, the rector of a well-known church in Kherson, was a prominent public figure in the community.
Waiting to confront them at the Antonovskiy Bridge, a key junction spanning the Dniepr River and connecting Kherson to the east, was a small Ukrainian army force supported by Kherson’s territorial army battalion — a group of 500 trained volunteers and veterans armed only with machine guns. “‘Heavily armed Russian police and operatives are sent out in civilian clothing to patrol the streets in cars stolen from Kherson residents. Their behavior is characterized by widespread looting, random acts of violence and summary arrests.’”
Economic activity has all but ceased in the city, Oksana said from Kherson over Signal Video. “Supermarkets are empty, but people can buy vegetables in street markets. The problem is finding cash. Exchanging cash from credit cards is now a big business, but everything is twice or three times the normal price and queues are really long. I had to wait three hours this week just to buy milk.”
Fearing that this change in currency is another step towards holding a “fake” referendum to declare Kherson an independent republic, a couple of hundred Kherson residents protested in the city’s centre square this week, and were dispersed with stun grenades and tear gas. Recent reports suggest the Ukrainian army is gaining the upper hand. If true, retaking the city, the first to be fully occupied by the Russians, would mark a stunning victory for Ukraine.
Threat of torture looms The threat of torture looms over Kherson like a toxic cloud. According to Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner, Liudmyla Denisova, the Russians have established torture chambers for Ukrainian abductees in the city. The twisted remains of shot-up, burnt-out cars discarded outside the city point to a grim fate that could face anyone trying to leave. Most don’t even consider it.
“Every car that passes is stopped and searched. Sometimes drivers and passengers have to hand over their phones, so the soldiers can check their messaging apps,” said Mykola, who wiped from his phone all incriminating messages and photos before the journey. “They’re looking for people who send locations of Russian army positions or anyone who simply expresses Ukrainian patriotism.”
The family proceeded through Snigurokva. The village was purged of any life, he said, an absence explained by the pulverized trees, road craters, and single-story homes razed to the ground. Signposts had been removed from the crossroads at the far end of the village as part of a nationwide campaign to confuse the invaders.
Up ahead was a sign warning that the road was mined. Mykola noticed a row of Russian soldiers lying down in a shallow trench near the side of the road. Two of them stood up and ran up to him. “We could see the artillery shells flying above us,” Mykola said. “Many of them landed really close. It felt like they were aiming at us. During the battle for Antonovskiy bridge, I saw helicopter gunfire tear my comrades apart. That was frightening, but not as bad as this. I told the others if one of us dies, we’ll have to leave them behind. All we could do was keep walking. The most frightening part of it all was that there was nothing we could do. God was the only one who could help us.
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