“Our village is now coming back to life”

For 11 months, Tetiana Zadorozhna and her husband were sleeping in the corridor of their apartment. The only place they felt safe, as missiles were flying above, and fighting was happening all around their village Pervomaiske in the Mykolaiv region of Ukraine. 
 

“Every night, we brought our mattresses to the corridor and a shovel to sleep with, so that we could dig ourselves out, in case something happened, and we would be covered in all the rubble,” recalls Tetiana. “We were just praying the whole time, but we survived.”
 

In the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Tetiana’s village was right on the frontline. The village quickly became deserted, as families fled for safety. The older couple were the only ones left in their apartment building that before was the home of 16 families. 
 

While missiles hit the nearby houses, their building was never hit directly – by a miracle, or rather by an oak tree, explains Tetiana. 
 

“Our big oak tree behind the building saved us. It shielded us from the debris.”

The building was left standing, but not unimpacted. When the area was retaken by Ukraine – and the fighting and frontline were pushed further away from Pervomaiske at the end of 2022 – no windows were left in the building and the roof was severely damaged and full of holes. This was when UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and its Ukrainian NGO partner Tenth of April stepped in. 
 

People living in multistorey apartment buildings, where common areas such as roofs, entrances and staircases have been damaged, leaving the entire building out of function, cannot enroll in the Ukrainian Government’s compensation scheme eVidnovlennia (eRecovery). To address this gap – and in order to maximize the use of available services and ensure full complementarity between the Government-led response and UNHCR’s programmes – UNHCR and its partners have been repairing common areas of multistorey buildings since 2023. 
 

A total of some 70 multistorey buildings so far have been repaired in Kharkiv, Odesa, Mykolaiv, Sumy and Dnipropetrovsk regions. This means that 7,200 families with war-damaged apartments have become eligible to apply for the state compensation that will provide them financial support to do necessary repairs of their homes. 
 

“With millions of homes damaged in Ukraine by Russia’s full-scale invasion, UNHCR is committed to contribute to the sustainable recovery of communities and help people get back in their homes. At the same time, it’s crucial that we work closely with the authorities who are leading the response, and ensure that our programmes are complementing and filling the gaps. With this initiative, this is exactly the approach, as we not only repair war-damaged multistorey buildings, but also enable the families living there to apply for the important state compensation,” says Karolina Lindholm Billing, UNHCR’s Representative in Ukraine.
 

Back in Pervomaiske, UNHCR and its partner repaired the roof of Tetiana’s apartment building. 

“After the roof was fixed, this allowed us to apply for compensation, and we are very grateful. We have fixed the windows ourselves now,” she says.

In addition to the repair works, the village has been supported by others with the restoration of water and gas supply, and the military helped with the removal of debris. And then, people started to return to Pervomaiske. 
 

“All but one family in the building are back. We can see the village is now coming back to life,“ says Tetyana. “This is our home, and we never want to leave. I am not scared anymore, but I just hope for peace. For my grandchildren.” 

The repairs of common spaces in multistorey buildings are part of UNHCR’s overall emergency shelter and housing programme in Ukraine. This also includes distribution of emergency shelter materials immediately after attacks to help families cover broken windows and doors to protect their homes, with some 470,000 people supported since the start of the full-scale invasion. In addition, UNHCR and partners are providing durable repairs of war-damaged houses – so far, over 40,000 homes have been repaired since February 2022.