There is no one on the left bank except civilians, who are not being helped - volunteer Oleksandr Kastornov

Oleksandr Kastornov spoke about this in the War and Volunteers program hosted by Espreso journalist.

"No one goes to the left bank. There are neither Russians nor our military," says Oleksandr. - "There are just people sitting under the roofs. When I went there, I took as many people on my boat as it could carry to move around. You also need to understand that there was a very strong current and the engine had to pull it all out. People passed notes with phones to call their families back and let them know they were alive. Because everyone's phones were dead. Given the fact that the Russians forbade the use of Ukrainian cards, everyone had Russian ones. And it was impossible to call back to a Ukrainian number. So we tried to make ourselves known somehow."

According to Oleksandr, the elderly people who lived in villages in the depths of the forest could still survive because they had supplies. Others had nothing.

"They went to the store once a week, so they had their own water supplies. And when trouble came, they went up to the roof, grabbed a bucket of water, and that's what they had left. Others didn't even have that," Oleksandr emphasises. - "But the evacuation process is very difficult, almost impossible. The military does not allow volunteers. It is dangerous. On the way, I met a boat with two Russians who were dressed in civilian clothes. I got lost and approached them to ask how to get to the dacha cooperative. By the way they spoke, I realised that they were Russians.  I was lucky that they didn't have any weapons with them. I asked them how to get to the dacha cooperative, they tried to speak something in Ukrainian at first, and then switched to Russian, saying they were not local and did not know the way. I immediately left them. In fact, Russians are also terrified and are running for their lives. They are hiding on the roofs. They don't think of the war as a way to escape.  Meanwhile, people are dying one by one. We took one old lady, she broke a window on the roof herself and climbed out through it. We caught her in a boat. But we could not take the others. It's scary to hear people screaming and crying. No one is helping them." 

As a reminder, the volunteer spoke about the situation on the flooded left bank. He described how people are rescuing themselves there.