The territory of the Tsyrkuny Village Council was significantly damaged during the war, as the municipality was occupied from the first day of the invasion and has been under constant shelling since the liberation.

The Tsyrkuny municipality received assistance from the U-LEAD with Europe Programme that included necessary tools to mitigate the consequences of shelling and occupation. These are street lighting, generators, saws, water tanks, kits for IDPs, etc.

Despite the relatively stable electricity situation in the country, some areas of the municipality are still without power. This is due to the consequences of the occupation and constant shelling of the villages. Ihor Kuzmenko, First Deputy Head of the Tsyrkuny Village Military Administration, talked about it.

“We are grateful to U-LEAD for the aid provided, especially for the generators that we still use today. After all, some of our villages have been without power since the first day of the full-scale war and remain so now. Our critical infrastructure received significant damages, so the generators come in handy. We use them to power pumps to provide water to the population. At specific hours and days, we also set them up in places accessible to the public for charging phones, power banks, etc. The Tent of Invincibility is also powered by a generator.”

According to Mr Kuzmenko, chainsaws have been very useful as well: volunteers and workers of utility services clear up rubble, saw boards and trees and collect firewood. The received tanks are used to distribute drinking water to the population: there is one in the humanitarian hub and another on one of the municipality’s streets.

“People are returning home and helping with the cleanup, but we lack technical resources. We need equipment for repairing the power supply system, construction materials, demolition and construction equipment and chainsaws,” he said.

According to Oksana Cherkas, Head of the Regional Office of U-LEAD with Europe in the Kharkiv oblast, Tsyrkuny was among more than 30 municipalities of the Kharkiv oblast that received humanitarian aid from U-LEAD in 2022.

We remind you that earlier we wrote about the success story of the Koryukiv municipality, which also suffered occupation and significant destruction, and is currently being rebuilt with the help of the U-LEAD Program.