Okhtyrka is a city in Sumy Oblast, near the border with russia. They were among the first ones to take the blow of the russian invaders. Geographically, the city is located in the centre of a peculiar triangle of three regional centres: Sumy, Poltava, and Kharkiv. But the people of Okhtyrka did not allow the enemy columns to advance further. 

The russians mercilessly bombed the town with aircrafts and heavy artillery. They hit a CHP, a kindergarten, the residential quarters. The city council building was razed to the ground. 

From the first days of the full-scale invasion Okhtyrka’s resistance was in the top news of Ukrainian and international media. The mayor of the city appeared on the air almost every day. Pavlo Kuzmenko tells: how and at what cost they resisted.