Ukrainian village scarred by murder of mayor & her family prepares for long war

livemint.com:

MOTYZHYN, Ukraine—Two years ago, Ukrainian soldiers who retook this village near Kyiv from Russian invaders found the bodies of the mayor, her husband and their son buried in a shallow grave with bullet holes in their chests and heads. These days the front line is hundreds of miles away, to the east and south, with the war in a violent deadlock. But the village is adapting for a long war.

The library is sending more than 10,000 Russian-language books—the majority of its collection—for pulping. Villagers evicted a priest linked to the Russian Orthodox Church and welcomed a replacement from the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine. The school has equipped an underground bunker with a stove, benches and games for children to take shelter and continue learning when the air-raid siren sounds.

While the U.S. and its allies are dithering over providing more and better weapons to Ukraine, villages like this one are going all in. Having experienced Russian occupation that left at least 15 people dead, including civilians who were gunned down in their cars as they tried to flee, Motyzhyn is bracing for the long term.

“Putin is choking on Ukraine, he can’t swallow it, but Ukraine is bleeding," said Tetiana Semenova, deputy head of the Kyiv Regional Council and a good friend of Motyzhyn’s late mayor, Olha Sukhenko. “We can cope, but we can’t fight against weapons with sticks." Motyzhyn was a prosperous village of 850 residents located among forests and lakes some 30 miles west of Kyiv when Russia invaded in February 2022. In the first days of the invasion, the population swelled as people arrived from Kyiv hoping the village would prove safer.