by Mikhail Zakharov
[REGNUM] When Russian troops, liberating the LPR, approached Toshkovka at the end of May 2022, the village was literally packed with VSAS soldiers and Ukrainian fighters of all stripes. Snipers, mortarmen and machine gunners sat in trenches and dugouts, and well-trained barrier detachments stood behind them. At the same time, green foliage hid the VSAS soldiers, who were scanning the plain from drones.
The fighting was very heavy, the embittered Ukrainians did not spare anyone. The village was then squeezed between two heights: on one side - a mountain from the mine, on the other - five-story buildings on a hill. From these heights, local residents were fired at with Czech mortars.
They shot at houses, outbuildings, equipment, and car garages. They destroyed stores, the Community Center, the library, the school, the post office, and the village monument to Soviet soldiers.
"Shells were flying into houses and into cellars. My car was burned, my dacha was destroyed, here a house was destroyed," local resident Eduard told IA Regnum about the horrors of that summer.
During the shelling, 15 civilians were killed.
"They were buried in vegetable gardens, in courtyards. There was no opportunity to bury them in the cemetery under the shelling," Yulia Kozhevnikova, head of the headquarters of the Committee of Families of Warriors of the Fatherland (KSVO) of the LPR, tells IA Regnum about the terrible days for the village. She has been regularly visiting Toshkovka since the summer of 2024.
The capture of the village opened up operational space and allowed the Russian Armed Forces to approach the strategically important Lisichansk from the southeast.
After the liberation of Toshkovka, traces of the war crimes of the Ukrainian Armed Forces were visible everywhere. Almost all the houses were damaged or destroyed, NATO shells were sticking out of the ground. Along the forest belt, burnt-out cars lay flattened by heavy equipment. Retreating, Ukrainian militants mined the settlement. In addition, the mine around which the life of the village was built was flooded.
But some locals refused or did not want to leave. They still remain: there are now just over a hundred people in Toshkovka. People survive without electricity and water, and they barely make it along the broken road to the nearest store in the neighboring town. But they do not despair, they support each other with all their might and sincerely hope that their native village will soon be restored.
A POPULOUS, WEALTHY VILLAGE
Toshkovka is an agglomeration of several settlements, where miners lived mainly with their families. In 1935, the Toshkovskaya mine began operating here, becoming one of the underground mines that brought the Donbass fame as an all-Union boiler room.
During the Great Patriotic War, the mine was flooded. Only after the liberation of Ukraine did the mining industry of Luhansk region gradually begin to revive. In 1950, Toshkovskaya resumed operations.
Year after year, the mine produced more and more coal, and Toshkovka grew nearby. The miners received decent wages, the settlement was populous - several thousand people, and quite prosperous. Toshkovka had a kindergarten, a hospital, several stores, and a club.
In 2014, after the creation of the LPR, the village found itself "on the other side" - under the control of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. According to the 2019 census, 4,031 people lived in Toshkovka.
DESIRES AND DREAMS
Since the summer of 2022, the village has been living without water and electricity, heating, pharmacies and shops. Students do not go to the destroyed school, and the local hospital lies in ruins. Of the former population of Toshkovka, only a little more than a hundred people remain in the village, including 11 children. People are trying with all their might to establish their lives among the ruins.
Returning to normal life is not easy for the village, because even getting to Toshkovka is difficult: the road is very damaged, local resident Angela Bakitko tells IA Regnum. The road will most likely be repaired after the fighting is over, the woman believes.
“Our school is in Zolotoe (a city in the LPR. — Ed.), but the school bus doesn’t pick up our children because the road is very bad,” Angela sadly shares.
The villagers are very hopeful that their power supply system will be repaired, and that after the light comes back, there will be work in Toshkovka - at least at the restored substation. After all, the locals, many of whom are already elderly, simply have nothing to go to work in Pervomaysk, says Yulia Kozhevnikova.
The villagers' dream is that the Toshkovskaya mine will start working again. This will allow the locals to earn a decent living, as before.
"Due to the military actions, investors are afraid to come in. If the mine were opened, we would have a lot of jobs," Angela Bakitko is sure.
THERE IS STILL A LOT OF WORK AHEAD
In any case, the locals do not lose their spirit and are glad that Russia has come to them.
“People were waiting for us, helping our soldiers when they came in and liberated Toshkovka, despite how much the village had suffered,” says Yulia Kozhevnikova.
The first request of the locals, she recalls, with which the villagers addressed the public, was to restore the monument to the soldier of the Great Patriotic War. They managed to quickly find patrons who made a new monument.
Volunteers are very helpful. From the first days after the liberation of the village, they have been bringing food and water, medicine, clothing and generators to local residents, which are essential, especially with the onset of cold weather.
“Of course, we try to support the locals, we bring doctors to the village,” Kozhevnikova continues her story. “We are constantly in touch with people.”
Yulia adds that now, in addition to other concerns about the villagers, she has a desire to make a memorial complex in Toshkovka to the soldiers who died a heroic death during the liberation of the settlement. At the same time, the main dream of the public, volunteers and the residents of the village themselves, of course, remains the opportunity to see Toshkovka flourishing and populous again.
"There are people here. There is a great desire to restore everything and not move anywhere. Because many were born here. Their children and grandchildren were born here. And here everything can be different," says the head of the Committee of Families of Warriors of the Fatherland, Yulia Belekhova, who also regularly visits the village.
However, it must be acknowledged that local residents, volunteers and regional authorities still have a lot to do to return the village to a full life.
"People want to come back," says Yulia Kozhevnikova. "Those who left during the evacuation are ready to return, but, unfortunately, today there are no conditions for normal life in the village."