Christmas celebrations offer hope for exiles from occupied Bakhmut

The displaced administration of Bakhmut organized a Christmas concert in Kyiv on December 22, featuring a military orchestra and performances by members of the diaspora. The event included a workshop on Christmas decorations and was held as the community faced another challenging year, with the prospect of retaking the town, captured by Russian forces in May 2023, increasingly uncertain. [Barbara Wojazer/AFPTV/AFP]

By AFP | 2024-12-26

KYIV -- Anna Holubtsova was getting ready to sing at the concert organized in Kyiv by the Bakhmut administration, exiled since Russian forces devastated and seized their eastern Ukrainian city.

The last time AFP saw Holubtsova was in October 2022, when she was standing next to the burning house of her neighbor, destroyed by a rocket.

More than two years later, she refuses to give up on the hope to see her hometown back under the Ukrainian flag.

"Maybe I am a dreamer or a fairytale maker. But I have said and will continue to say that my family will be one of the first to return and rebuild Bakhmut," she said.

Bakhmut native Anna Holubtsova performs in front of other internally displaced persons, during a Christmas concert organized by the exiled Bakhmut city hall in Kyiv, on December 23, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine. [Anatolii Stepanov/AFP]

Tetyana Salieva (right), director of the Feliks Theater Studio of the Bakhmut People's House, leads a masterclass on making Christmas decorations with members of the diaspora from Bakhmut before a Christmas concert organized by the exiled Bakhmut city hall in Kyiv, on December 23. [Anatolii Stepanov/AFP]

Internally displaced persons, members of the diaspora from Bakhmut, stand as they listen to the National Exemplary Band of the Ukrainian military during a Christmas concert organized by the exiled Bakhmut city hall in Kyiv, on December 23. [Anatolii Stepanov/AFP]

That prospect is growing tenuous.

If Kyiv is forced to cede the almost 20% of its territory now occupied by Russia, for the diaspora, this means potentially never going home.

'We lived one more day'

About 100 Bakhmut exiles were lining up for tea, biscuits and oranges next to a stand where children participated in a Christmas decoration workshop.

The event was organized by Bakhmut's exiled city administration and Lyudmyla Bondareva, who oversees the humanitarian center for Bakhmut refugees in Kyiv.

The crowd slowly made its way into the concert hall, where attendees watched, clapped and teared up as community members followed one another on stage.

When Holubtsova sang, some of the audience stood up waving their arms to the music.

After a short interruption from Santa Claus, the concert ended with a military orchestra whose singers danced with children.

"This distracts us. It helps us stay afloat, even just a bit," said Natalya Zyzyaeva, 63.

She said one of her neighbors had been shot dead on her way to a henhouse.

Another was buried in the vegetable garden.

Zyzyaeva made her way with her daughter to Kyiv, where she was struggling to rent a one-room apartment.

"We are not making any plans. We lived one more day? Thanks be to God," she said.

"Where should we go back to? We have nowhere to go back to. We don't have a home anymore."

Hopes and dreams

The battle for Bakhmut between summer 2022 and May 2023 devastated the city.

Satellite images of the town, once home to 70,000, show buildings reduced to rubble on scorched land.

"It's all been destroyed, so we can't even think of returning yet," said Olena Rudyk, 65, a retired musician.

Rudyk preferred talking about the city's famous sparkling wine and its parks that she loved.

"The whole town was covered in flowerbeds, flowerbeds of roses. There were parks everywhere, and the central promenade was gorgeous," she said.

As the war nears its third anniversary, polls show growing public willingness to give up some of the territory Russia captured for the sake of peace.

Some 53.2% of Ukrainians say Ukraine should keep fighting for all its territories -- a significant drop from 76.2% in 2023, the New Europe Center said.

The Kyiv Institute for Sociology in a separate poll found that 46% of Ukrainians would be ready to accept giving up Donbas and Crimea.

But Holubtsova refuses to give up.

"I think that dreams are what push us to live on, to persevere and keep moving. So please, dream, hope, wait and everything will come true."

Society