The Psalter of Kostyantynivka
Chronicle of a dying city, through the eyes of a citizen of the aggressor Country.
Donetsk Region, Ukraine
08/10/2024. Kostyantynivka. An aerial bomb ripped through the roof. A man plummeted from the fifth floor to the second, along with the floor slabs. He survived, as did six other wounded. A woman on the lower floors was killed.
03/01/2025. Psalter. Chernihiv. From the group "Russia killed them."
Today, Russian terrorists killed Oleksiy Halionka, Doctor of Pedagogical Sciences and lecturer at the Department of Philological Disciplines of the "Ushinsky" Chernihiv Institute of Postgraduate Education.
The man was 72 years old. On March 22, 2022, due to Russian bombardments, his house was destroyed in a fire, but he did not leave Chernihiv; he lived in a summer kitchen and dreamed of rebuilding his home...
Oleksiy Anatoliyovych was fatally struck by shrapnel to the head following a triple Russian missile attack on residential buildings in the city of Chernihiv (occurred at 16:20, 16:37, and 16:51).
29/01/2025. Psalter. Today there was an attack on a company in Mykolaiv. Two women were killed.
Lately, the amount of information regarding victims has drastically decreased. Apartment buildings burn, detached houses explode: everything is as it was before. The chronicle captures the seriously wounded, but information about the killed has become much less frequent. Minor injuries are rarely reported.
Standard words, when speaking of such levels of horror and pain, are out of place. Better to say less, but with honesty and from the heart. Truly.
10/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The house is gone. This is Kostyantynivka, toward which they continue to stretch their hands, again and again. And I do not remember a single day, nor a single night, when it was not so. I no longer know the boundaries of pain, hatred, and horror.
How heavy, at times, are the beads of the rosary in prayer.
19/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. This afternoon, an attack killed two more elderly people, and yesterday, two others. Perhaps someone will find it in them to forgive. I will not be able to forget anything: not the mourning, not the pain, not my own complicity. Even as I continue to smile in public.
20/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today, according to the local police, four dead. Like clockwork—neither negotiations, nor speeches, nothing stops anything. Nothing. One bomb took the life of a 67 years old man. An artillery strike killed a 47 years old man and two women, one of whom was 72... I must update the numbers: five in Kostyantynivka and three in the surrounding areas.
21/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. A 40 years old man was killed. Two women over sixty years old were seriously wounded.
22/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Attack on the residential sector, at least 4 bombs. A 5-story apartment building was destroyed (in one section, from the fifth floor to the first, everything collapsed into the basement). 3 wounded, one woman in critical condition. Two people under the rubble... Update: Sadly, two dead. The search under the rubble continues. Receive, Oh Lord, thy servants.
Another attack on an apartment building. A new one. Another stairwell in one day. The second. They are digging, hoping to find someone alive. For now, one 72 years old victim and five wounded.
23/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Systematic killing of the older generation. Night shelling. 3 dead and 10 wounded.
25/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. For two days this city has been subjected to constant, chaotic attacks with aerial bombs and multiple launch rocket systems. And they aim at specific targets, they carpet-bomb. Not so many military sites, but private homes, turned into total ruins.
A small house on the outskirts. The owner went out Saturday evening and returned all cheerful: "Here I am, who are you looking for?" But the house is gone, and two teams of rescuers are digging through the rubble looking for her or her corpse. The local population must either die or flee. Just like in...
My government insists on the birth of a "new world," a world of multipolarity and sovereignty. That is, the right of the strongest to defend their own social and political imperfection through arrogant force and a lack of fear toward mass murder. The important thing is to be "real machos," and not "losers", the scum who have no rights and must only obey. "Tomorrow belongs to me," tomorrow belongs to the machos; machos only negotiate with other machos. Machos do not have to ask or think about the future. "It’s better this way than croaking from vodka." Like a Greek hoplite, they have only the present and then death. Listen to the Word and it will lead you to Victory. Existence, in short.
It is the third or fourth time in the last 100 years that someone is trying to create a "new order." For the third or fourth time, it begins with a massacre of innocents. At times I feel an uncontrollable urge to ask: "If this is the birth, if the newborn infant—pink and enchanting—is made like this, are we aware of what comes next?"
26/02/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday, the day in which death had almost spared us, has ended. Today, five dead and 11 wounded. They hit the market, full of people. Dovha Balka: one dead.
26/02/2025.Psalter of Kostyantynivka. And in the morning, the people woke up...
04/03/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. In the last week, 16 people have died, 38 wounded.
07/03/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday was the second day of incessant shelling in the "Oktjabr" neighborhood (only wounded). Today, sporadic strikes on the city. But in the surrounding areas... Village of Ivanopillja: one woman killed.
08/03/2025. Every city in eastern Ukraine is being killed in its own way. They lived similarly, but they left differently. Kostyantynivka is being killed slowly, its life squeezed out drop by drop, methodically, relentlessly, without mercy. They knowingly strike everything that is alive. Any infrastructure. This morning alone, about 6 bombardments. And again, victims.
20/03/2025. Apparently, the paramedics of Kostyantynivka are not energy infrastructure, so they are fair game to be fired upon. A woman and three men were wounded. In general, the agony of Kostyantynivka never stops. Yesterday one person died, the day before yesterday, two.
27/03/2025. Kostyantynivka. Psalter. Every day, one or two civilians are killed. Today again, once more. Every day... Wounded and killed. They don't even make it into the official bulletins anymore. Born in 1949, born in 1950. Lord, protect the elderly.
08/04/2025. Yesterday, two people died. Three wounded, one of whom is a 9-year-old child—as I understand, in critical condition. Perhaps I am wrong about the severity, and God grant that I am. Another person died in the surrounding villages.
10/04/2025. Attacks on Ozernoje and Pjatykhatky.
17/04/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. In the first half of the day, there were several attacks with aerial bombs. Private homes destroyed. A 53-year-old man was killed. Midday—aerial bombs, two dead, two wounded; 5 apartment buildings, a private house, and several cars damaged.
This morning, Kramatorsk district: 3 wounded. Pokrovsk district: 2 wounded. A total of about 22 bombings between the end of the night and the morning.
18/04/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. In addition to what was reported yesterday, the evening shelling of Kostyantynivka took another life, aged 57. Today, another 2 killed (men aged 86 and 53) and wounded (the wife of the 53 years old killed man and a 72-year-old lady). A mass of destroyed buildings. Everything as always and, as always, infinitely heavy.
26/04/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. During the daylight hours today: 8 bombs, 2 dead, and 5 wounded. And they couldn't miss sending their "greetings" for the end of Easter, striking the local church.
27/04/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. A series of attacks this morning at 10:30. Currently, 3 dead and 4 wounded.
28/04/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Four dead and five wounded. A nursery school was destroyed; 9 apartment buildings and 23 private houses damaged. I just read that another elderly man died in Kostyantynivka, and another woman passed away in the hospital (a stroke during the air raid).
02/05/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. One dead, three wounded.
14/05/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. An attack on a house. Lidiya Odintsova and her son Nikita Odintsov were killed. The father of the family survived. A family destroyed. Remember these people in your prayers.
22/05/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Bombing: a 54-year-old woman was killed. Her 27-year-old daughter was very seriously wounded (open head trauma). Pray for her, if it is not difficult for you.
23/05/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. After the night attack, one died. Another person had been hospitalized and around 18:00 the news of their death arrived.
24/05/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Last night it was Kyiv’s turn. People of Kyiv, hold on; it must have been truly, truly terrifying. And, as per routine, it was Kostyantynivka’s turn. Here are the data:
On May 23, 2025, at 22:40, enemy troops dropped an aerial bomb on a residential area of Kostyantynivka. Following the air strike, a 47-year-old woman sustained injuries incompatible with life. Her husband, 53, suffered blast trauma and lacerations to his thigh and forearm. At the time of the bombing, the couple was inside their home.
Also, two citizens aged 65 and 88 were taken to the hospital from a nearby house. They were diagnosed with blast trauma and lacerations all over their bodies. One of the victims also suffered a concussion. I can only pray.
30/05/2025. Psalter. At the moment, the cannonade over Kostyantynivka does not subside; continuous shelling is underway. Last night 1 dead and 3 wounded.
02/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Heavy night. Attacks on the town center. As always, fires in the private sector. A 60 years old woman died. Four people—men aged 33 and 83 and women aged 73 and 78—sustained physical injuries. The severity is not clear from the information. I ask you not to forget them in your prayers.
07/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The Russian army presses toward the city and shifts from air strikes to a combination of bombs and artillery. One dead in Jablonivka, one in Kostyantynivka, along with his house. Simply remember them in prayer...
09/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday one person was killed (along with his house), today one wounded. A man was driving his car and a drone plummeted onto him. The man is in critical condition but alive. And yes, the operator saw he was a civilian. He was simply killing.
19/06/2025. Psalter. The agony of Kostyantynivka does not leave me; it leaves scorched earth within. Toward dawn in the "Gora" district—no, I don't know where it is, but surely in Kostyantynivka—there was a bombardment, again a dead man and incalculable destruction.
20/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Another death. An old man and his dog. They lived together; they left together. Over the rainbow, along the moon’s path. Just an old dog and an old man. And then, in the photos, what remains of a meticulously tended apple orchard. Everything done seriously, with that sturdy peasant love. The fence, the paths and access to the trees, the well.
21/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Six bombardments last night. Most in a semi-empty city, hitting nothingness. Mostly the facades of buildings pay the price. The most frequent note is: "3 facades of private houses damaged." How much I love the Ukrainian word «vidsutni» (absent), there are no victims, but... but as always, there are also dead. The night bombardment between 03:00 and 03:40 took another house along with its owner. One person was killed.
Why do I write? It is a difficult question. I have a beastly fear, bordering on paranoia. But if I stay silent, it means they have won, inside of me. No, they have already won anyway. But still...
22/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. More attacks. One person killed and two wounded. Information is minimal. Lord, receive Thy departed servants and grant strength to the living.
23/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Drone attack against a city bus at 11:00. On board were the driver and one passenger. The driver was killed; the passenger was hospitalized in serious condition. Lord, receive the souls of Thy servants, sustain the living and grant them healing of body and spirit.
25/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Due to the bombings, almost half the city is without power. 1,900 houses in Santurynivka remain without gas, and it is impossible to restore the supply. Water is provided once a day, from 17:00 to 20:00, covering only 20–25% of the need.
Due to drone attacks, the city bus service has been suspended. The suburban line to Druzhkivka operates in a limited capacity.
7 tanks and 11 water cisterns have been installed in the city; 12 wells are active, 6 of them with purification. 5 "Points of Invincibility" are functioning, another 2 are in standby mode.
Despite everything, doctors, sanitation workers, police, and authorities work. But the enemy systematically destroys critical infrastructure.
26/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. At 16:00 a drone attack killed one civilian and wounded another. It seems to me the eighth attack today, counting the night, but I might be confused. Lord, receive the soul of Thy servant and help the living in their weakness.
27/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. 11:40 – bombardment, two wounded. 14:00 – bombardment, 1 dead and three wounded.
28/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today was "hot"; from 11:00 they hammered the city with every means. Mostly deserted neighborhoods, from which people fled, turning them into a lunar landscape. But not everyone left. A one-month-old baby died. An immense pain. Lord, receive this innocent soul. There are no adequate words. Strength to the survivors.
29/06/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. 10:30 in the morning, one person killed. Who it is, what happened, I don't know. As a child I went to the grave of the unknown soldier and, very small, I didn't understand how it was possible. On monuments they always write the name. Dates. And instead now, everywhere, they just kill people... Hope is only one: that God knows and can receive them. Because if it were not so, then there was a spark, it lit, it shone, and then it vanished into nothingness. Receive the soul of Thy servant. Now this hope—that we will be received—is incredibly important.
03/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today, in one of the nearby villages, a drone hit a private structure, causing a fire and wounding people. When firefighters and medics arrived to extinguish the flames and help, they were hit again. And then once more, while carrying out the wounded. Result: three dead and three wounded. The old sniper tactic in various ethnic conflicts, as in the former Yugoslavia. Wound one in the legs and wait for them to come to rescue him, to slaughter the rescuers. They say Serbian snipers did this in Sarajevo. I believe they did it elsewhere too. If there is one thing the human being knows how to do well, it is to borrow the most effective atrocities.
05/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. One dead (artillery fire).
06/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today is a terrible day. A bombardment took the lives of 4 people at once. Among them Artur Kovalyšin, waterworks engineer, and his wife Anna. Lord, receive Thy servants, forgive them their conscious or unconscious sins.
09/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Another day of mass bombings on the city. Three people died. The body of Konstantin Dmitrievič Gavrilov was found, missing during previous bombings. His family searched for him and finally found him. How hard it is to pray when one prays for the dead every single day. The words seem bureaucratic and out of place. But they were people. And it is the only thing I can do for them now.
10/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. How numbers merge into each other. In June, in Ukraine, 232 civilians died and 1,343 were wounded. These are figures of a sad record. Today +1. A drone successfully hit a car with a civilian on board.
15/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Several attacks on the city yesterday and one dead.
17/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. 2 people killed (heavy artillery fire). Ages 57 and 59. A 67-year-old pensioner was seriously wounded by a mine explosion. Lord, let her make it.
18/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today at 09:00 in the morning, a multiple rocket launcher attack. One person was killed.
19/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday, an attack killed 4 elderly women and one elderly man. Lord, receive Thy servants and give strength to the living.
22/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Night shellings. 1 dead. Plus 1 dead in Kramatorsk, and another in Zarične. And I, like an idiot, for a moment hoped there were no deaths today. Only mass destruction of buildings and facades.
24/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today, already in broad daylight, an attack, the eighth or ninth in the last 24 hours. An apartment building was destroyed. Two women aged 48 and 59 died. 14 wounded. And throughout the day, insane figures of destruction of empty houses, where for a long time there has been no one. 10 apartment buildings and 21 separate private houses, plus an administrative building, two pharmacies, and more... It seems that hammering empty zones is the norm there.
29/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today for now everyone is alive, but there are three wounded after the bombardment of an apartment building. A 71-year-old man, Valentin Vladimirovič Muzyka, is in serious condition and has been transported to the Dnipro hospital. His wife, 70, lost her home and all her possessions, but they survived. Another man aged 47.
30/07/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Unfortunately, the 71-year-old man wounded did not make it past the morning.
03/08/2025. Psalter. Last night in Kostyantynivka two people were killed—a direct hit on a house—and one was wounded. The son of the victims is now an orphan. This morning, following an attack, a person in an administrative building died. A guard, an employee, a chance visitor? I don't know.
05/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. A 74-year-old woman was wounded and hospitalized. A drone hit a water truck distributing water to houses. The driver is alive; the vehicle is "dead." The death of two policemen, Oleksij Balaba and Dmytro Korobenko, was reported.
08/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today an ambulance came under drone attack. Dr. Olga Yuryevna Yakovleva died. The driver and other medics were seriously injured. Balance of the 24 hours: 1 dead and 1 wounded (bombing at 12:40). It went much worse for other villages and towns in the Donetsk region, primarily Druzhkivka: 3 deaths.
12/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. More attacks, two more dead in the afternoon. Who they are, I don't know. People. For some reason they even ended up in the BBC feed. How the data on losses reaches there remains a mystery. But what unbearable pain for people…
I'm watching a clip about Kostyantynivka. A good girl, a correspondent, is passing through a practically destroyed city. She is afraid—I probably would be too—but she heroically tries to present herself well to the camera and ask intelligent questions.
— Was it bombed here? — she asks, pointing to the ruins of a house.
— Uh, yes — replies the driver, one of the soldiers.
— This is probably what FPV drone strikes look like — the lady says aloud to the camera.
— No, they were guided aerial bombs — the driver gently corrects her.
14/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday one person died. Today, during the daytime bombardment, a woman died. Panic during the evacuation of civilians due to the breakthrough of Russian troops. A lady could not withstand the chaos of the evacuation (they were not able to immediately receive a non-self-sufficient person, who remained for a long time in the evacuation vehicle) and, despite attempts to save her, she died.
18/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today is a sad day. Five people died at once. Three together, and separately a lady and a 74-year-old pensioner. Another four sustained serious lacerations from shrapnel. Furthermore, two rescuers were wounded. Receive, O Lord, the souls of thy servants, give strength to the living to survive this horror.
Kharkiv – Seven dead, including an entire family: an 18-month-old girl, her 16-year-old brother, their mother, father, and grandmother… Five missing, 20 wounded.
19/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Pro-Kremlin sites claim that the Russian army has broken into the outskirts of Kostyantynivka and is fighting in the suburbs.
20/08/2025. Psalter. It seems the agony begins. About 6,800 people remain in the city. According to official data, three civilians died during the daylight hours today. Four wounded. They fired Smerch rocket launchers at the market.
22/08/2025. Psalter. Forgive my excessive pedantry and obviousness. I need to talk, not necessarily to be heard or understood. Just talk. I hope that by saying it and then taking Lexotan the pain will pass, and I will return to being a better person. Maybe.
I had never known Kostyantynivka; before, nothing tied me to this city, to someone just a small, awkward, ordinary dusty city along the road. You read the name, look out the window and say to yourself: "Everything here is just like everywhere else." But for others, it was the Fatherland, that unrepeatable shadow of a mother approaching from behind, the drops on the roses in front of the house, the shade of the gardens and the heat of the beach, the first fight and the realization that people are shit but worth loving. A whole world. I think Kostyantynivka could have been like this, or another way, or a third or fourth. For every man, the place where he lives is often the reflection of his own memory.
I say this because I see people who only now begin to fully understand what they have lost. I, instead, have for too long been reading the chronicles of daily death. Not just single people are being killed, but an entire town as an almost living organism, as a place where hands and soul were applied, as a place of memories. Those gardens and those roses that were planted, watered, tended and of which one was proud. Photos of destruction and fire are published; I publish them too when I can't take it anymore, but before my eyes, for this town alone, every day there are hecatombs of such images, accompanied by photos of people who are experiencing it on their own skin, and by videos. And then the chats are full of pain, hatred, contempt, despair of those who left but for whom Kostyantynivka is not an empty name, and the people on the screen are not just people, but fragments of their life.
Someone told me: "One must pray for people," but people do not end where their skin ends. They are also the environment they create: houses, schools, streets, flowers, memories. All this is us. The place of life in its entirety. Here the cultured word "social" would fit well. And if so, people are also ties, encounters, dialogues, waitings and dreams, memories. The work and the pride that derives from it. The pain for offenses and defeats. Everything together. And all this is now being killed. Trampled with such banality that it seems to have become a commonplace. "You are telling us nothing new, we already know." Trampled, they are telling us to "unite ." Unite by killing us.
There are people who genuinely believe that in society individuals have no importance, that they are negligible in toto, from beginning to end. They treat both the Ukrainians and us this way. Human beings cannot treat other human beings this way; it means, therefore, that they are not human at all. We are not submitted to, we do not communicate with, and we are not governed by men but by shells, by those who have forgotten being men among men. In essence, the worst possible thing has happened. A total inhumanity of power for its own sake, without even the need for great ideas. Terminators who empty and erase people.
23/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The front advances slowly toward the city from different directions. The intensity of attacks increases. Judging by the images, everything that was not burning five minutes ago is burning. They mainly hit apartment buildings, evidently considering them as future defensive points. It is a terrifying sight, looking at the photographs. Yesterday's balance among civilians: two killed, three wounded. Lord, receive the souls of thy servants. Today a drone hit a car with people being evacuated. There are no data on the number of victims.
28/08/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday, a drone attacked an apartment building. Two people died. Relatives are looking for two others: they seem to have been brought out alive. Today, a short while ago, another drone attacked the same apartment building; it is on fire again.
02/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. One person was killed and five wounded yesterday. There are no precise data yet. The evacuation proceeds actively. It seems that that part of the population that hoped to "wait for it to pass" has understood that the city risks the fate of Vovchansk. The targeted destruction of all the city's municipal services continues. Some time ago they hit shops, then pharmacies. The destruction of post offices—which among other things deliver pensions to people, an old and dear meeting place—is now systematic. Now drones ferociously hit the vehicles of repair teams. This morning at 07:00, after yet another bombardment, the municipal workers who rushed to the scene ended up under a drone attack. Three wounded transported to the hospital, vehicles destroyed.
03/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Blood, corpses, rubble, and killed or mutilated dogs. Today already 9 people killed (women aged 46, 72, 74; men aged 44, 52, 57 and 76—people who attempted to flee by car and were hit by drones: two cars with civilians, a 36-year-old woman dead, the others wounded). They are all elderly or rescue service operators; another 17 wounded. Surely someone will be missing. A frightening day. There are thousands of photos, but I just can't publish them, they aren't needed. Such pain must be accompanied by silence; it doesn't need extra emotions. Simply pray for the rest of their souls, if you have the strength.
04/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. At the news of the local hospital's closure, the Russian troops reacted by dropping 3 aerial bombs on its empty buildings. A humanitarian gesture of theirs. Unfortunately, it didn't end there. Following the bombardment of the residential sector, a civilian was killed along with his house.
Why don't people leave or only leave under artillery fire? I don't just follow the news channels but also the chats, and the picture that emerges is this:
There is a small number of pro-Russian fanatics. They are very few. People can have different opinions, but as a main motivation to stay, no, they seem to be few. They understand the danger of stray shells. And anyway life in a basement with nothing is certainly not a walk in the park.
Kostyantynivka is a transport hub. That's exactly why the Russian troops aim there. But a hub only makes sense if it's served. And this requires specialists, their families and those who guarantee vital services for these specialists. Thus a certain number of people is reached. Gradually the infrastructure is dismantled, but it's not a quick process. Let's take an example: yesterday they announced the closure of the Kostyantynivka hospital. I go to read the materials. The head doctor writes: we have completely stopped admissions, transferred part of the equipment and patients, are packing the rest of the machinery and only do outpatient visits. There. It means the people in the facility are there. Firefighters, shops, police and so on are needed.
It's easy to evacuate oneself. But if you have a business, what do you do? Let's say 100 cows, 150 horses, 3 tractors, 3 cars, geese and ducks in commercial quantities. Let's add that the animals and vehicles are often in leasing not yet paid to the banks, and the money will have to be returned. These people, driven into a corner, do not have the courage to realize that whoever arrives will take everything away. They hope for a miracle: "Look at Pokrovsk, the front has been stagnant for a year. What if the negotiations froze the situation on the front line and somehow everything settled?"
But these are not the most numerous groups. The largest group are the elderly: either with bad relations with relatives, or with reduced mobility, or without savings. For the age they have, these people completely block the understanding of what war is. They have a defensive reaction: the rejection of fear. It is precisely this group that stays until the end. To an outside spectator like me it appears more or less like this: "We thought, oh, ah, to wait for it to pass, but yesterday... and the day before yesterday...". Some have nowhere to go, but for others it is a mental block. We, in our time, were unable to win with our elders, clearly losing the challenge of stubbornness. There, the roses and the apple trees—in other words, age-related fear. Particularly tragic is the fate of the bedridden disabled and those who care for them. The Russian authorities, unlike the Ukrainian ones, do not mince words with this group and evict them by force. The Ukrainians only with consent.
I will forever remember the interview with an old woman from Vovchansk: «He let me go. He loved me all his life. He hadn't walked for three years. He would have died and I would have died beside him. But then there was the roar of a missile and he died. So he let me go on the last bus. The only thing I don't understand is how I will manage to live without having buried him».
05/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Unfortunately, yesterday's attack on the hospital killed two people. Patients, technical staff, medical staff, I don't know. But in all, three deaths are counted for yesterday.
08/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. From the "absurd things" section. A few days ago in Kostyantynivka they closed the hospital and were preparing to take away the equipment. But as soon as the closure was announced, the Russian air force hurled a rain of bombs on the building. The first day people died, then obviously not. But the building was razed to the ground. From what I understand, that lunar landscape was the hospital, not just that stump visible in the background. WHY?
09/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday at 14:30 a man was killed in his house, hit along with him. In the evening a bridge was hit and a woman who was crossing it was wounded. On social media and forums, relatives have been desperately searching for a family for days: husband and wife had left the shop near home and never returned. Relatives console themselves saying that perhaps they are in an area where there is no signal. But it's the only hope left, with all these drones flying over the city. In this context, the total destruction of empty apartment buildings seems banal. Today an entire section of a building collapsed. Everything was accompanied by a fire. They looked for people under the rubble, but it seems there were none. Maybe. I don't understand the festive excitement on certain pro-Cremlin sites regarding this building: they say they "fried the Ukrainians" and destroyed a strategic objective. Who understands these people?
Among the good news: an old man they thought dead was evacuated. A neighbour literally pushed our hero onto the evacuation vehicle. Relatives in the chats are happy, although furious with the old man for his stubbornness.
Yarovo. Lord... An attack against pensioners who were receiving their pensions. For now there is talk of 21 dead and as many wounded. I will not publish the video; it is a carnage. On the web they ask "Why". The answer can only be one.
11/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Following attacks against a private house, one person died yesterday. During the night attack on an apartment building, three people remained under the rubble. One of them died, one was pulled out wounded and one was not found.
13/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Russian channels report a significant advance toward the city from the southeast. Consequently, the city is under continuous bombardment (air strikes and Smerch systems). Three apartment buildings burn and collapse. Three people died (33, 76 and 78 years old), seven civilians were wounded (three men aged 27, 59 and 61 and four women between 42 and 59 years old)—injuries from mines, shrapnel and an open fracture.
14/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. To all this it is impossible to get used to and it is impossible to resign oneself. An ordinary day in the city, between notes and images. Whether the diplomats speak or not, meet or not, the entire front zone, for a depth of 30 kilometres, every inhabited center, every single blessed day, appears exactly like this and in no other way. We eat, drink, talk, make peace and argue, but there it only is like that. There remains the wonderment: how many good and different things men have built, if so much effort is needed to destroy them, leaving only pain, ruins and darkness.
Timeline of the bombardments on Kostyantynivka in the last 24 hours:
13.09.2025 at 01:00: enemy attack with 3 rockets from "Smerch" MLRS system on the city. No victims recorded. 5 facades of apartment buildings, 5 facades of private houses, the facade of a shop, that of a pharmacy and a service minibus damaged.
13.09.2025 at 02:14: enemy attack with heavy artillery on the city. No victims recorded. The facade of an apartment building and that of a commercial pavilion were damaged.
13.09.2025 at 05:40: 3 enemy air strikes with aerial bombs on Kostyantynivka. 3 impacts confirmed. No victims recorded. 3 facades of apartment buildings and the facade of an educational institution were damaged.
13.09.2025 at 05:45: 2 enemy air strikes with aerial bombs on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. 3 facades of apartment buildings damaged.
13.09.2025 at 05:45: another 3 enemy air strikes with aerial bombs on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. 3 facades of apartment buildings damaged.
13.09.2025 at 07:30: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. The facade of a private house was damaged.
13.09.2025 between 07:40 and 08:30: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. Following the bombardments, 3 civilians died and 3 were wounded. Furthermore, it was confirmed that 3 civilians presented themselves independently to the trauma department of the Druzhkivka hospital, where the body of a civilian deceased from injuries incompatible with life was also found. 2 facades of apartment buildings, 10 facades of private houses and one car damaged.
13.09.2025 at 08:00: enemy attack with a rocket from "Smerch" MLRS system on Kostyantynivka. One civilian was wounded. 2 facades of private houses were damaged.
13.09.2025 at 08:40: enemy attack with a "Smerch" rocket on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. The administrative building of the hospital was damaged.
13.09.2025 at 10:00: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. One civilian was wounded. The facade of a private house was damaged.
13.09.2025 at 11:15: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. The facade of a private house was damaged.
13.09.2025 at 11:30: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. The facade of an apartment building was damaged.
13.09.2025 at 12:13: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. 2 facades of former shops were damaged.
13.09.2025 at 18:00: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. One civilian was wounded. The facade of an apartment building was damaged. 13.09.2025 at 18:20: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. One civilian was wounded. The facade of an apartment building was damaged.
13.09.2025 at 20:45: enemy attack with heavy artillery on Kostyantynivka. No victims recorded. The facade of a private house was damaged.
15/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Someone asked me: how is it possible? Such small losses in the face of such heavy bombardments. I will show you how. Today, between 07:30 and 08:30, an area of the city roughly the size of 5 houses was hit. According to my calculations, it's about 5,000 square meters or slightly less. A rectangle of 50 by 100 meters. On this surface there was only one inhabited house, where a woman over 60 lived. From other points people have left. All the houses were razed to the ground. The woman was pulled alive from the rubble. Her land is the one in the photograph. There is bombardment, but there are no human losses. The horror remains, however. In this photo I see five impact craters (four holes and the house). In a very approximate way, it can be assumed that 25-30 explosives were dropped on the ground. Such density suggests that they didn't miss, but that they hit exactly where they wanted. If we assume that one shot cost 30,000 rubles two years ago, now it will cost about 45,000. In this destruction, about 1,300,000 – 1,400,000 rubles were invested, or slightly less. In other words, about as much as 5 houses with land cost in the village of Pecherkino, where my family lived before the war. The destruction is equivalent to the construction. Even in accounting calculations. And any economist will tell you that accounting is not everything. Economists say this, not to mention sociologists, political scientists and historians.
Yes, yesterday, in exactly the same conditions but over a larger area (eight houses), at 18:30 a person died. I do not know their gender or age. Receive, Oh Lord, this innocent soul.
18/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. 09:55 AM. An aerial bomb struck a two-story building from the Stalin era. Judging by the photograph, the impact occurred in front of the house, right against the building, causing the destruction of the apartments and a fire. It seems there was no one inside the house, but in front of the building were 5 people: three men and two women, all between the ages of 65 and 74. Perhaps they were waiting for the delivery of water or food. They all died. Receive the souls of Thy servants. Give strength to their loved ones to survive this pain.
22/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The day before yesterday an elderly man was killed in the city, yesterday morning an elderly lady was killed. The rescue services are working worse and worse, and because of this, people are sometimes saved by pure chance. A family had decided to leave and had called a vehicle for transport. When it arrived, the house and the owners were no longer there. Only rubble. They started to shout, from underneath they answered and — what incredible luck — they managed to pull them all out, even the cat. If it hadn't been for the appointment with the transporter, no one would have noticed. I don't even know if this hell has a happy or a tragic ending.
Update. Yesterday in Kostyantynivka three more people were killed (a total of four in one day). Every day I watch the videos of the evacuations and the transfers of people. It is terrible, frightening, and hopeless. And it is chilling that I am part of all this. Part of that system that brings so much pain.
23/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The day before yesterday not just one person died, but four. Yesterday two: one on the spot, the other today in the hospital. Lord, receive the souls of Thy servants.
24/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Last night, in different parts of the city, two people were killed and three were wounded. This morning, with another bombardment, two more men (aged 42 and 69) were killed, also in different places. Several wounded, one of whom, as they write, is in critical condition. Lord...
25/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday, in addition to the two people already mentioned, two others died due to the evening shelling. May they rest in peace. But today I speak of another sad phenomenon that always accompanies such events. Something human, all too human. This comes from a chat. I am leaving the surname, simply so that it is easier to pray and light a candle for him:
24.09.25 at Schmidt street 97, there was a bombardment. My father died in the car, a VAZ 2108 (license plate AH 8859 OE): Voronov Aleksandr Anatoljevič, born 02.11.1982. In the car there should have been the documents, a bag with the phone, the wallet with money, and the house keys.
The bag was stolen at the site of the bombing, the phone is in Kostyantynivka – calls are being rejected.
We ask to return everything that was stolen, we will give a reward.
Please call the number…
27/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday we managed to have no victims. Not today. An attack at 5 in the morning against an apartment building. One dead and five wounded. It is time to be silent when there is such pain around. To accept the pain and pray.
30/09/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. This is more or less what the consequences of a drone attack (which occurred about half an hour ago) look like against a man born in '55 and a woman born in '69. A targeted attack: the operator saw the age, the faces, saw everything. "The Russian drone pilot (I emphasise Russian, not 'of the Russian Federation') would not hurt a dog." This comes from a propaganda video where it is said that we see the dogs well but we don't touch them. The condition of the victims is not clear. It is only certain that the woman has a serious back injury. They are wounded. But it is not in Kostyantynivka, although it is nearby, in Druzhkivka. The nearest place where they take the evacuees from Kostyantynivka. As for Kostyantynivka, yesterday there were 2 dead and two wounded. Lord, receive Thy servants and give strength to the living to endure all this.
03/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday one person died under the rubble and there were three wounded. The empty neighborhoods have been subjected to further and active destruction, in the hope that it will be easier to fight among the ruins. Less and less is being extinguished, focusing on the attempt to evacuate people and deliver water to them. The city still resists, although the strength and life have been squeezed out of it drop by drop.
09/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. In the last few days in Kostyantynivka there have been no killings, although two elderly women are missing. There are wounded, every day from one to three people. The evacuation continues, with fair success. A rescuer was wounded, saved by his bulletproof vest. The fire does not subside. Today they hit the local church, it seems to be the third time already.
10/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Last night, following a guided aerial bomb attack, there was one dead and four wounded.
11/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. We are Orthodox, you say? Right…
Artillery bombardment, judging by the photos published once again — how many times more? — against the Orthodox church; honestly I have lost count of how many times it has happened. Two men aged 49 and 56 died. Two men aged 47 and 74 and two women aged 56 and 62 were wounded. It is not clear if they were present at the service or if they were helping to clean the church after the bombardment of the day before yesterday, when the building had suffered a serious fire.
Under the same bombardment were found, but suffered no physical damage, an Orthodox priest and his two-year-old son. Their wife and mother died a week ago. If I understand correctly, the priest tries to celebrate the services for the remaining residents.
I wrote this and I thought: this man has the strength to serve God in a dead city. A week after the killing of his wife. In a city that is being destroyed with the prayer of thanksgiving and the blessing of the head of his own Church.
13/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Last night another dead, not near the church. In the southeast of the city. And here is where I get lost. A drone attacked a car that was evacuating five pensioners, a dog, and a cat. Two escorts. Behind, by pure chance, there was a patrol that shot down the drone at the last moment. If not for this, the day could have ended differently. And yet whoever hit aimed to see the target well.
If I understand correctly, another aerial bomb against an apartment building, an epic fire, but it seems there was no one left in the house. It seems. Whoever hit knew it...
The Russian troops, according to both Ukrainian and Russian maps, are slowly approaching. Fighting is taking place in the nearest dacha areas.
14/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yesterday two dead and four wounded. A drone hit a car of refugees.
17/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The fate of Kostyantynivka sounds more and more like a funeral march for Kramatorsk. It seems like an eternity since the first drone attack against civilians, and now the city is being razed to the ground methodically and without haste. They don't hit people, but areas and buildings, not caring who is inside. As for Kostyantynivka, as always, they hammer an empty city; it burns and they almost don't extinguish it anymore. Why extinguish isolated and deserted ruins under drone fire? They evacuate people: someone has reached their limit only now. Drones hit those who leave, but volunteers return fire, risking their skin. A game between life and death. In the suburbs the fighting intensifies. The neighborhoods of the neighboring villages change hands for the fifth or sixth time. The Russian troops fail to consolidate, the Ukrainian ones fail to hold back the direct assault, but manage to drive out those who have not yet entrenched themselves. It is the prosaic banality of positional fighting.
19/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The evacuation of people from a city almost under siege continues. One person died. Lord, receive Thy servant. All the channels and chats are full of videos of destruction and memories of a dear past. Of what has been destroyed brutally and criminally.
Both sides publish the same photos, but with different purposes. I am getting old and I can endure less and less this community of "monkeys" who have come to enjoy the pain of others. The cultured word would be "to compensate." "I wonder if the old woman grunts when the drone catches her?" "Kill them all, you must only have corpses left." "The Ukrainians love this, it's their style." And so on. They say it can happen anywhere, to any person. Maybe. But with these people I walk the same streets. For this reason they are not indifferent to me. Such is life.
20/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. The shellings continue. This morning two men aged 45 and 58 were wounded. From what I understand, it is a single episode. Later, an artillery strike against a five-story prefabricated apartment building killed a woman in her apartment.
22/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Massive raid today. This morning 11 bombs were dropped. They mainly hit deserted private properties. Two dead and two wounded.
23/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. A drone hit a group of evacuation cars and 4 civilians who were nearby. Among them were two elderly people over seventy who walked with difficulty. The drone was fiber optic and the operator saw where he was hitting down to the smallest details of the face. He hit the old people consciously. They are all alive, but two are seriously wounded. I have only one question: what bastard had the courage to do it?
Messages on official channels:
The rescuers, unfortunately, can no longer carry out the entire complex of search and rescue operations in cities like Kostyantynivka. Similar situation for medical assistance: after a bombardment, the evaluation of civilian victims is no longer done by doctors on site, but based on requests for help at medical facilities in other cities within 24 hours. Basically it's logical: lately such interventions led only to further victims due to repeated attacks or FPV drones against service vehicles.
Therefore, in settlements located in an area within 10 km from the line of contact, the functions of rescuers and doctors are often carried out by the non-indifferent among the military. Due to such situations, counting the real victims among the civilian population is almost impossible.
Today I had a very sad discussion about the objectives behind the attacks on local premises. Honestly, I do not have an opinion of my own. But here is another reason and material for a somber reflection. And regarding the video itself: when I was a child, I loved Louis Boussenard; there was a novel of his, "Le Capitaine Casse-Cou", about French volunteers fighting alongside the Boers at the beginning of the 20th century. As the ultimate example of ferocity, the game of "pig-sticking" was described. Here it is much the same, only it is not done by knights on horseback, but with drones.
26/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. According to official statistics, on the last day in the city there were 3 dead and 1 wounded.
27/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. According to official statistics, on the last day one person died in the city. Counting the surrounding towns, the dead are 6. Information is less and less. People simply leave, as if wrapped in darkness. Save us, Lord! Not according to our sins, but according to Thy mercy.
28/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Last night I watched yet another video. Ruins, puddles, emptiness; the only novelty is that in the background you can hear the sound of firearms. Someone shoots eagerly at something or someone else. Given the proximity of the frontline…
I change the video and there is a man telling how he failed to pull his father out of the rubble. The father was alive, moving, talking, but they didn't make it in time. Anguish. Rather, it is not anguish, it is something that cannot be transmitted in words, but that is felt in the voice.
For now the situation is this: one dead and three wounded. The victim remained buried in his own home. The wounded are from an attack on an apartment building.
29/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. They start mining the city from the air. An elderly man stepped on a mine, and the lady ran towards him. For now they are alive, but both have lost a lot of blood, they will probably lose limbs. They have a daughter and a granddaughter who had not managed to take them away before. Help them, Lord, all three. In that family one of the men has already died at the front. And now this.
Yesterday an elderly man was walking down the street. A fiber optic drone saw him, one of those where the operator even manages to see the small wrinkles. And to the operator it seemed that an old man with a shopping bag was a good target. He decided to limit himself to the old man. And the old man is no longer there. Recovering him is dangerous, so they buried him wrapped in a bag near the shop where he never arrived. Under the yellow and dark leaves of his native land. Digging is dangerous, another drone might arrive, so the depth of the grave is only 40 centimetres. That's how things go. Lord, receive Thy servant.
I know that spitting in their faces is dangerous and useless, and I remember I have a family to protect. I swear.
31/10/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Aerial bomb attack on an apartment building and a neighborhood of private houses. One dead (a 75-year-old gentleman) and six wounded. They hit harder and harder other cities destined to share the fate of Kostyantynivka.
– Kramatorsk: an 82 years old man died, three wounded.
– Slov’jans’k: two men and a woman died.
– Mykolaïvka: two dead, six wounded.
Calmly, methodically and without haste. Lord...
01/11/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Direct hit on a house. A 42-year-old man died. An elderly woman was killed yesterday in the courtyard of her apartment building; the neighbors buried her there, in the courtyard. In official statistics the lady did not appear. She is what is called an "extra." A man, wounded, miraculously managed to reach Druzhkivka on foot. Only with willpower. The man has an open and compound fracture to the leg and arm. Seeing him lying in the hospital makes a terrible impression.
Lord, receive Thy servants and give strength to the living to endure what is impossible to endure.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High and abides in the shadow of the Almighty,
says to the Lord: "My refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust."
He will deliver you from the snare of the fowler, from the destroying pestilence.
He will cover you with his pinions, under his wings you will find refuge;
his faithfulness will be shield and buckler.
You will not fear the terrors of the night, nor the arrow that flies by day,
the pestilence that roams in the darkness, the destruction that wastes at noonday.
02/11/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. In the last 24 hours, another man was killed due to night shellings and three people were wounded. It seems that the Russian troops are exhausted and have suspended the assault on the nearest suburbs. A spokesman for the Ukrainian command notes a reduced intensity of attacks. They moved the fire, once again, away from the city "towards the woods." From the evacuation videos it is evident the incredible abundance of drones over the city. In one of the videos, while an elderly lady dragged her suitcase, 4 drones passed over the volunteers, successfully driven away with smoothbore weapons.
04/11/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. An elderly man walking his little dog was killed. Someone guided the drone towards the old man and the dog. He blew them both up and published the video online with triumphant music.
It seems the time has come to open a section for Kramatorsk. They are taking the city very seriously, turning it into a new Kostyantynivka.
A Spanish television crew was present during a raid; it was not pleasant, thank God they are fine. For the presenter, the "fucks" and "goods" (I'm alive, the others are alive) alternated with kaleidoscopic speed.
06/11/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. After a drone attack in the Pavlohrad area, they write that 600 miners remained trapped in a mine. For now they cannot get them out. Lord, help them.
In Kostyantynivka there are no official victims, two wounded, but the drivers found two new graves without inscriptions along the road.
In Kramatorsk, a drone attack against a bus. They are wounded. "We immersed ourselves in such a sea of human pain, humiliation and despair, that it was simply impossible to complain about one's fate." — Susanna Pečuro
08/11/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Non-stop. Yesterday one person died and another was wounded. I do not know the circumstances. Only information.
09/11/2025. "Shame is not something you can get rid of with a gesture. Shame sticks like resin."
Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Yet another man on a bicycle was killed. Everything as usual. They approached with the drone, observed him carefully and killed him without haste. On the asphalt remain pieces of a bicycle and of a man over sixty years old. I wonder if by age they could be his sons or grandsons. Perhaps they will receive a small medal; an order is unlikely, except for "overall merit."
Lord, receive the soul of Thy servant. And forgive his sins, conscious or unconscious...
11/11/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. Today continues the series of incessant blows on the ruins. A rocket hit the third floor of an apartment building, and a fire broke out. On the sixth and seventh floors some people remained trapped. They were all saved.
Yesterday a drone entered a volunteer car and pierced it from side to side. They are all alive, it didn't even touch anyone. But the car is finished.
This evening a drone, according to the usual pattern, deliberately killed a motorcyclist, a man in his sixties.
According to official statistics: two wounded.
I see, I hear, I perceive.
12/12/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. 2 killed and 2 wounded.
13/12/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. 3 dead, 7 wounded.
14/12/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. 1 dead and 4 wounded.
16/12/2025. Psalter of Kostyantynivka. In Kostyantynivka during the day two artillery bombardments were recorded: two men aged 39 and 46 wounded. In Druzhkivka an enemy FPV drone hit a civilian target: one person died. Two cars were also attacked, two more local residents wounded.