A residential complex in Irpin town named Rich Town, consisting of about a thousand apartments, came under shellfire from Russian troops in March 2022.

All this time, Roman Mogilyanets, the head of the condominium association, remained on the territory of the residential complex. He evacuated people and delivered humanitarian cargo. He buried a mother and child in a local park. They came under mortar fire and were burned alive.

Roman took some photos and recorded some video of the life of their residential complex and the town from the first days of the full-scale war.

My name is Roman Mogylianets and my father’s name is Oleksandr. I named my daughter Oleksandra after him. She is my beloved daughter who is… I cannot talk without tears because she is a child with special needs. And so whenever I start telling this I all the time…, sorry for my emotions, I somehow give vent to them. Oleksandr means courageous, and so she courageously fought for her life and was an example for us.

Life is a struggle, and if you really want to live, you need to fight. We moved here three years ago. I did everything to bring all the relatives somewhat closer. As one of my sisters is in Hostomel and we also moved my other sister here, as well as our parents. We thought that this town is simply gorgeous for living. A place where you can live and enjoy life.

Now I officially work as the head of the condominium association, and besides that, I am an entrepreneur. I am in trade, foodstuff. We felt what war is right on 24 February.

Incessant bombing, aircrafts flying, helicopters, people in panic, searching for car fuel. Packing up of suitcases, belongings, requests for evacuation, for taking somebody out.

It started from 24 February, as I did not go to work anymore. I mean, my main job, as an entrepreneur. Because people immediately began to look for a place where to hide. As the head of the condominium, I opened the doors to the basements so that people could take shelter and save their lives. Our residential complex consists of seven high-rise buildings, 10-storey houses and one five-storey house. About a thousand apartments in total and about three thousand people. We are a young residential complex. Mostly young people live here, and there are many IDPs from Donetsk and Lugansk regions. They had to go through this horror again. People had abandoned their homes back there with hope, and they were overtaken by the same fate. This is probably the bitterest thing in this situation.

The first time we heard the roaring of the tank engines was on 5 March. They entered the area next to our residential complex. There are other residential complexes across the road. These are Synergy and Fortuna.

They came in and parked between the buildings, and it was clear why. If fire was opened on them, the houses would be damaged. They also tried to drive in [our residential complex] but could not. The fence and high sidewalks did not allow them to.

When we saw them, they parked opposite to us. We have some videos and facts of their looting, when they went to a pawnshop, a pharmacy, and other shops. They fired at the doors and at the windows with machine guns. This was also captured on video. I don’t understand for what purpose [they fired]. Maybe something came in their sight, like some curtains moved somewhere, or those were just some preventive shots. The fact was that when we went to a neighbouring house, and Russians were staying there, they were shooting. They just waved and said, “Go back home, go home.”

There was a case when I personally took some people out [of the area]. A mortar shelling began then and I waited it out there in the area near Romanivskyi bridge. When we returned, there was a woman with the child who did not make it to cross. We were waiting for them near the residential complexes in cars. We parked there waiting for people. They got into our cars and we tried our best to evacuate people, driving at high speed. The mortar shelling began, and they were killed. It was a mother of 40 years old and a 14-year-old child... And a mortar attack. We hid in basements.

And the next morning they burned down. People saw through the window how the child died at once and the mother was still alive. Then the suitcase caught fire and they burned down.

The next day we buried them in our park. We made a cross. We found some burnt documents they had with them, so we immediately identified who they were. This is probably the most tragic situation that happened, broadly speaking, before our eyes. So we were taking people out of here. We tried as best as we could, and we asked people to leave. The local authorities also supported this.

The last evacuation by minibuses was on 10 March, and we were taking people out still. And then I tried to call, but there was no signal. I got up at night and found out that there was no mobile connection. In the morning, at about 10 o’clock, a man picked up the phone and said that they spent the night at a Russian checkpoint. It was in Stoyanka. He told me that they were stopped and held there like a human shield. Russians ordered everyone to go out of the vehicles and men’s phones were checked. They looked what was there. People had to delete everything that was on their phones urgently.

They [Russians] checked the men, asked them to take off their outerwear, made sure that there were no tattoos or traces of belts or weapons. Well, thank God, they survived the night, but they were very cold. Fortunately, everyone was alive, but after that, the evacuation by minibuses stopped.

We continued our evacuation until 5 March, when the Russian troops entered here, and we evacuated them [local people] to the destroyed bridge in the village of Romanivka. Our forces destroyed it to make it impossible to get to Kyiv, but people still crossed under the bridge, and volunteers from Kyiv were already waiting for them on the other side.

We had an understanding that there was a chance to survive in case of a mortar shelling hiding between the cars that were left in three rows on the bridge, like a scrap ground, and so we rushed there. Those who could, crossed it themselves, and those who could not, got help. Elderly women were carried over. A man was shot dead in a neighbouring residential complex. I cannot say for what reason they shot him. There were three graves in this park where we are now. That mother and her son’s bodies were buried in one grave, and another killed man, his name was Fedir and he was a territorial defence unit’s soldier, was buried in the second grave. He died when the Russians entered and destroyed our checkpoint by fire. And in the third grave was the man who was shot down. The Russians took him out and shot him. The next day local residents buried him in this park.

The largest damage was sustained at the end of March, when they decided to leave here, and the main troops packed up and left. Those who fired, they simply covered the area with fire so that no one would come here.

There were various sorts of requests from people and I do not consider these requests stupid. It’s one thing when they ask to evacuate a cat, a parrot, or a hamster. People consider that pet as a member of their family.

I have a neighbour in my section of the house, a very nice guy. As I understand, they have a small kid and he loves his hamster very much. So the man, Zhenia, called me over and, with some embarrassment, he asked me to take their hamster out. I put this hamster in my pocket. Here I had an empty bottle. I thought that if a sniper sees that I went to get some water, he would spare me. So that’s how I went. Cars were no longer driving because the shelling was constant. I reached the bridge near Romanivka village, with a hamster in my pocket. I had to run from one tree to another tree.

There is a video of an incoming shellfire strike in our area, when Kashtan store was on fire in the centre of the town. That was at the time when we evacuated the hamster. And this story has some continuation. When I spent the night in the basement in Kyiv – we were sheltered there – the next day, Zhenia was in Vinnytsia. He asked me to bring the hamster to the highway. And when I drove up... As far as I remember, some 10 kilometres were left, I saw a pothole [on the road]. I drove around one pothole and got into another one. The car bounced. I had a bottle of water and it fell into the box where the hamster was.

That’s it. My heart stopped beating. I thought about that hamster who went through the whole war (I was quite emotional), and when only 10 minutes were left, I failed to bring that hamster [alive]. I really began to pray, “Lord, if only it survived.”

I stopped the car and had a look: there was the bottle and the hamster near it was looking at me. So we also had situations like that. A more global goal, the ultimate goal is to manage to rebuild our houses before the winter, to repair the roofs, so that people could come back. We need life to come back to the town, back to these houses. 

This is unrealistic to do. I am not a military man, and perhaps I cannot explain it, but the consequences of this post-war syndrome keep returning, when the cars rattle loudly. Well, the windows are broken and covered with plastic film, that is why cars are heard quite loudly. And for these few seconds you don’t understand where you are and what you need to do. To hide... And then you see that the cat is close by, and you understand that it is a peaceful life. That’s why we definitely should not forget this. People should always know that this can happen again.

Our values have ​​ changed definitely. People began to listen to my urgings more. Well, at least in the residential complex – that’s for sure. I say, “Dear people, let’s live in peace and friendship (and this is not just a quote of Leopold cat from a known children’s cartoon). Let’s keep our negative emotions in control, and give a helping hand to each other.

This is our merit, the value of the Ukrainian people; that people are always ready to help and support – this is our strength.

And no matter who it is. My father’s favourite saying is “Many hands make light work”. When we unite, we become a force and it is impossible to defeat us. We will win anyway. If not today, then tomorrow. Therefore, we believe: everything will be Ukraine. Everything will be Ukraine.