Liberated Novodarivka: destroyed houses and mined gardens

The village on the border of Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk regions looks eerie after more than a year of occupation

Novodarivka is a small settlement in the Malynivka village community of the Pologivskyi district of Zaporizhzhia region. Even before the outbreak of the full-scale war, the village was on the list of those called "dying out": there were only five, at most ten houses with people living in them, mostly elderly people. After the "army of liberation" took over the village, only the walls of two or three houses remained, the rest were gone.

The village is overgrown with weeds taller than a person's height. There are trenches and trenches everywhere that the Russians dug when they captured Novodarivka. But the worst thing is that it is full of mines.

We were in the village for less than an hour, and all the time we had the feeling that we were not alone there. Several times, at different locations, we heard the sound of a drone in the sky. According to the military, the "bird" was hostile: the invaders are not giving up trying to take back Novodarivka.

THE MAIN "ATTRACTION" IS A DAMAGED TANK

- You can only walk along the tracks of cars. Wherever you see a car passing by, go there. Don't go too far to the roadside, you can't go into the fields at all if you need your legs," says a press officer of the Zaporizhzhia separate territorial defense brigade named Damian.

We came to Novodarivka with him a month and a half after the liberation. We got to the village just after the rain - the mud, like plasticine, "remembered" fresh wheel prints, so it was clearly visible where exactly we could walk.

- This village was liberated on June 4 by our 110th Brigade together with the mechanized units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. It is on the front line, was under constant enemy fire and therefore badly damaged. There are no local residents here," says the unit spokesman.

The main "attraction" of the de-occupied village is an enemy T-72 tank, which was shot down by our military during the battle for Novodarivka. The rusty armored vehicle is standing right on the road, and a few meters away, in a place where walking is not very desirable, the crew members are buried.

- A clear hit to the side. The explosion caused the tank's turret to fly 15 meters, turn over and fall on it again," Damian shows the enemy scrap metal.

At the other end of the village, a Russian infantry fighting vehicle, which was also destroyed during the battle, is in the weeds.

HOLES IN THE HOUSES

After we left the village, we asked Volodymyr Shysh, the head of the Malynivka community, by phone to find out a little more about Novodarivka. He tells us that the village was seized on April 17, 2022.

- "All the families who lived there, thank God, managed to leave," he says.

The man adds that despite the proximity of the contact line, he tries to visit his home community every week. He explains that five people still live in Malynivka, 17 in Poltavka, and five in another village. He brings them humanitarian aid because they don't want to leave, and have been living under shelling for two years. We asked how many houses were destroyed or damaged, and he said: every single one.

While we were in Novodarivka, we went to one of the houses. It was located on a hill, which was the enemy's advanced position. In one of the rooms there is a huge hole in the floor, covered with sacks. You can go down a ladder.

- Russians dug holes in the houses, so-called underground shelters. There were passages leading from the houses to the positions. The village was right on the contact line," said a spokesman for the territorial defense brigade.

There are a lot of things in the room that have the inscription "Army of Russia" or the regiment. There are call signs and names of Russian cities on the walls.

MINES IN THE GROUND AND IN THE SKY

Now it is a rear village, and the enemy positions are about 3 kilometers away. However, the whistle of mines is constantly heard, and there are seconds between the "exit" of a shell and its "arrival".

- The 110th Brigade tried to liberate this village back in February 2023, but the enemy had a strong foothold here: they dug in and mined it. While on our side there are, so to speak, clean territories and only minefields, on the territories captured by the enemy there are only some clean fields, and the rest is mined. Everything is mined: houses, yards, roadsides. The enemy is actively using remote mining. That is why our progress is quite difficult, hard and slow," says Damian.

Mines are lying along the road, and in the fields there are signs with the corresponding markings or ribbons of different colors, indicating that the area is mined.

In one of the private yards, an almost completely destroyed outbuilding was hidden in the weeds. It was used by the Russians as a hiding place. "Holes" were dug in it, with machine gun positions instead of windows and doors.

Just when we were near this building, we heard a drone. The explosions were getting more frequent and closer. So we decided not to stay there for long.

When they were leaving the village, Damian said that the Russian army suffered significant losses during the liberation of Novodarivka. In addition, the military said that the company of Russians that was stationed in the village had scattered.

A week after the liberation, on June 11, Russians blew up a dam near Novodarivka, which led to flooding along the banks of the Mokri Yaly River. However, this did not affect the offensive of the Tauride Defense Forces.

Olha Zvonaryova, Zaporizhzhia

Video by the author, photo by Dmytro Smolenko