Eerie ghost town flattened by Russia's troops as haunting schools lie abandoned

A Ukrainian border city has been left devastated after being obliterated by Russian forces, with 17,000 residents fleeing as more than half their homes were destroyed by Vladimir Putin's war.

Vovchansk served as an administrative hub in the north-eastern region, bisected by the Vovcha River, merely five kilometres from the Russian frontier.

In 2022, Vovchansk boasted 17,000 residents.

Yet by 2024, AFP and Bellingcat documented that 60 percent of structures in Vovchansk had been demolished, with damage inflicted upon an additional 18 percent.

This meant only 22 percent of the city remained intact as of late September 2024, reports the Mirror.

Nurseries, schools, places of worship, manufacturing plants and libraries were all caught in the path of devastation.

A phantom town now stands where they once flourished.

Inhabitants have become displaced persons in neighbouring Kharkiv, recounting their desperate escape from the settlement amid relentless shelling.

The head of the local library, Nelia Stryzhakova, lost all 12,500 volumes she had meticulously maintained for the community.

She told Bellingcat: "I don't have enough fingers to count what was there.

"There was a technical school, a medical school, seven schools, many kindergartens. How many factories did we have? An oil extraction factory, a butter factory, a furniture factory, a carriage factory, of which there were only two in Ukraine.

"I took my documents from work and a couple of personal items," Stryzhakova said. "That's all I have. Objects are not the most important."

The city centre has been decimated, with 90 per cent of its infrastructure reduced to mere skeletons, according to the city's mayor.

In Vovchansk, control of the town has seesawed between Ukrainian and Russian forces. Following the full-scale invasion by Russian troops in February 2022, Ukraine managed to force a retreat with an autumn counter-offensive.

Lieutenant Denys Yaroslavsky of Ukraine's 57th Brigade Reconnaissance Unit, who fought in both Bakhmut and Vovchansk, said: "The pace of destruction was so fast. What happened in Bakhmut in two or three months happened in Vovchansk in two or three weeks. Perhaps it was due to the proximity of the border, or the increase in the number of guided aerial bombs and the intensification of heavy fire,".

"Currently, Vovchansk is destroyed. Yes, it is under control. Yes, we have taken out the enemy and are trying to take physical control of these ruins. But the city does not exist. Seventeen-thousand people lost their homes, and why? Because someone did not build fortifications," he added, attributing the devastation to "negligence or corruption".

Many citizens have remained in the city as refugees since the start of the summer when the most intense fighting began. They described the trauma of enduring constant artillery barrages and witnessing the deaths of their neighbours.

Galyna Zharova, a 50 year old resident living in the north of the city, said: "We were right on the front line, you understand? No one could get us out of there,".

"All the buildings burned down and we were crammed into cellars," her husband, Victor, 65, added. The couple finally escaped the city in June 2024.

"The drones were flying (around us) like wasps, like mosquitoes," Galyna Zharova further stated.