Ukraine: one year of invasion and lifelong after-effects

It is one year since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The thousands of deaths on Ukrainian territory and the torture to which the population has been subjected will be difficult to forget. This is what María Senovilla, special envoy to the Ukrainian country, tells us on the programme "De cara al mundo" on Onda Madrid after a year of invasion.

María, where are you today? 

I'm still in Kramatorsk, 30 kilometres from the Bakhmut front, on a strangely calm day despite the fact that we are approaching the first anniversary of the war.  

You've been in Ukraine for a long time. What assessment can you make after all the months you've been covering this year of invasion? 

The first thing I see, and which is surprising one year later, is that the morale and the desire to continue resisting and not to allow the Russian army to break down is still present in the Ukrainians, even here in Dombas where the wear and tear is not limited to this year of war. The fighting started in 2014 and still people are very reluctant to evacuate, they still want to stay at home, they still feel Ukrainian and that is something that one year later, with hundreds of thousands of deaths that have occurred, surprises the international journalist.  

Do Ukrainians have the resources? The military units, if the heavy weapons don't arrive, those tanks, even those planes, can they have the capacity to continue resisting? 

The military is still demanding tanks and aircraft, waiting for this spring counteroffensive, which, although it actually started a few weeks ago, is going to intensify in the coming days. What I have seen in Bajmut over the last few days, when I have had the chance to go there several times, is that they are not only in need of heavy weapons, they are also in need of light vehicles, those pick-up trucks in which the troops travel. The artillery is doing its job, it is losing a lot of vehicles and is using up a lot of ammunition. So, in addition to those tanks and aircraft that are being ordered from Kiev, the troops on the front line are asking to be supplied with everything that is wearing out. 

You were saying earlier that the northern part of Lugansk and the southern part of Kharkov was a critical point where the fighting was intensifying, but in Dombas it is expected to intensify in the coming weeks as well. The strategy is now in Bakhmut, where they have not been able to take the city with the urban fighting from inside. There is now only one way in to the city and right now they are trying to evacuate the remaining civilians inside. No minors are allowed to enter, adults are allowed to bring supplies and humanitarian aid to their families inside, and in the case of journalists, we have to go through with military personnel and with special permission because the situation is very critical.  

In this year of invasion, what is the hardest thing you have seen? I guess the mass graves or the Russian torture chambers. 

The torture chambers, no doubt. The mass graves obviously as well, but I had the opportunity to investigate those torture chambers and the opportunity to talk to some civilians who had been tortured for days and even weeks, and I can assure you that the testimonies of some of them - I have collected them for the magazine Atalayar - were heartbreaking. It is sadder and more shocking than seeing a bombing in front of you.  

These are human dramas that I believe will continue to be played out even when the war is over because, especially in the towns that have been occupied - and I don't want to think what it will be like in those that are still under Kremlin control - practically everyone had a relative who had been illegally detained by Russian troops and who had been tortured or pressured to give information. They had spread fear among practically everyone. Although we are now in the middle of a war, people have to be strong, they know that, and they have to resist, but when all this is over, these are after-effects that will drag on for many years.