«Delivered letters and pensions under fire»: the story of a postwoman from Kotliareve, Mykolaiv Oblast
- Alisa Melik-Adamian
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9:00, 07 March, 2024
A resident of the village of Kotliareve, Valentyna Andriievska, delivered pensions and mail to locals throughout the full-scale war, even when the settlement was under target fire from the Russian Federation for more than nine months.
This is stated in the Nikcenter report.
All her life, the woman works as a postman in the village. At the beginning of the war, she decided to stay at home to help her fellow villagers by doing her job.
«I wasn't going to go. I carried mail and delivered pensions. Throughout the war, no one went to the post office in Mykolaiv, not a single village. Only Kotliareve, only me,» Liudmyla Andriievska said.
During the active shelling, the woman's house was also damaged. The woman miraculously survived, the journalists say.
«This door, if I were here, I would be cut down. I felt heat running down my back. It cut my head, whether it was glass or debris, I don't know. When the pension was carried around the houses of the old women, such an explosion near the medical center was terrible. I was covered with earth. The whole bicycle is in holes, I don't know how I stayed alive,» recalls the woman.
About 200 people live in the village now.
«For nine months, this fragile woman carried money, it was a million. During the shelling, people drove,» says the village headman about Liudmyla.
Valentina dreams of rebuilding her home, which was damaged by shelling, but they lack the funds and strength to do so. But the woman does not lose her optimism and continues to believe in victory:
«There will be a victory, we will wait for it. And we will live to harm our enemies.»
We will remind you that on the evening of March 1, the Russian occupiers launched a rocket attack on the village of Kotliareve. The fire was quickly extinguished by firefighters. Nearby residential buildings were also damaged by the shock wave.
As of January 2023, as of January 2023, 70% of the buildings in the village of Kotliareve, Mykolaiv region, were destroyed or destroyed due to Russian shelling.
See also the NikVesti photo report from the dilapidated Kotliareve.