Ukraine gave them new homes. They returned to their ruined villages anyway

Blahodatne means "blessed" in Ukrainian. Not a single home in the village survived Russia's shelling intact.

Five or six kilometers away, in Partyzanske, just 2% of houses remained undamaged. Both villages, in southern Ukraine's Mykolaiv Oblast, were on the front line in the spring of 2022.

After Ukrainian forces pushed Russian troops back across the Dnipro River in November 2022, residents began returning. Some moved into garages or sheds. Others covered damaged roofs with plastic sheeting or slept in their cars.

Four years later, rebuilding remains a struggle. State compensation has helped some families buy homes elsewhere, but others have returned to the villages they were supposed to leave behind.

For many, a new apartment cannot replace the place they call home.

Rebuilding before help arrived

Svitlana Kovach and her husband returned to Partyzanske in April 2023. They repaired their roof and replaced windows at their own expense before a government assessment commission visited.

By then, much of the initial work was already done.

"We lived in a damaged house and started repairs with our own money," Kovach told hromadske. The couple eventually received 200,000 hryvnias (approximately $4,700) through Ukraine's eRecovery compensation program.

But the money was nowhere near enough to finish rebuilding. Her husband has had a leg amputated above the knee, leaving the family dependent on hired workers.

"We'll die here before we finish repairing the house," she said.

Ukraine launched eRecovery in May 2023 to compensate homeowners whose properties were damaged or destroyed by Russia's war. Local commissions were tasked with assessing the damage and determining eligibility.

In Partyzanske, however, the first assessment reports enabling residents to seek compensation were issued only on July 24, 2023.

Local officials said the delay was partly caused by difficulties finding an architect qualified to assess the damage.

For residents who had returned the previous November, that meant months of trying to make their homes habitable without knowing what government assistance they would receive.

Liudmyla Belimenko, a nurse whose house was roughly 70% destroyed, said volunteers provided roofing materials, windows and doors. Families who could not wait paid for repairs themselves.

By the time state inspectors arrived, much of that work was no longer visible as unrepaired damage.

"If the commission had come earlier, people would have received more state money and could have done more work on their homes," Belimenko said.

A home without the paperwork

For other families, the problem is not only the amount of compensation but proving they legally own the property.

Snizhana Kunytska returned from Europe with her children in November 2024. While they were away, her husband had spent around 400,000 hryvnias repairing parts of their damaged house, with additional building materials provided by charities.

But the family could not immediately apply for compensation. The property had belonged to a deceased relative, and settling the inheritance and registering ownership took years.

Only recently did the couple complete the paperwork needed to request an assessment.

Anzhela Kapranova faces a different obstacle.

She bought a house in Partyzanske shortly before Russia's full-scale invasion, paying $5,000 after selling a plot of agricultural land. But she never formalized the purchase through a notary.

Then the war began, and the house was destroyed.

Kapranova now lives with her seven-year-old son, Bohdan, in a two-room modular home provided by an American charity. She cannot claim compensation for the destroyed property because she lacks the necessary ownership documents.

The former owner has since died, further complicating matters.

For families like hers, the gap between owning a home in practice and owning it on paper can determine whether they receive state assistance at all.

Roman Vozniak, head of the Zavodske settlement military administration, argues that property owners have a responsibility to register their homes properly.

But he also acknowledges the immediate priority: ensuring people have somewhere to live.

Compensated - but still determined to returns

Under eRecovery, owners of damaged homes can receive funds for repairs. Those whose properties are beyond repair may qualify for a housing certificate to buy another property or money to rebuild on their own land.

According to Partyzanske local administrator Raisa Shulha, up to 80 property owners in the two villages have received repair compensation. Only five people chose to rebuild their homes there using the available reconstruction option. Others obtained housing certificates and purchased property elsewhere.

Before the full-scale invasion, the two villages had approximately 800 houses.

Yet receiving a certificate and buying an apartment does not necessarily mean residents have left their villages for good.

Svitlana and Oleksandr Silenko, for example, used their compensation certificate to purchase a two-room apartment in the regional capital, Mykolaiv.

They now rent it out.

The income helped pay for Oleksandr's surgery, while the couple returned to Blahodatne, where British volunteers built them a small house on the site of their former summer kitchen and garage.

Both have health problems. Oleksandr has an amputated leg, and Svitlana has asthma.

"We're village people," Svitlana said. "How are we supposed to climb stairs in an apartment building without an elevator?"

Their new house is comfortable, but legally it is classified as an outbuilding rather than residential property.

That distinction has created another problem.

Houses that officially are not homes

British and American volunteers have helped residents build or repair structures commonly described as summer kitchens — small buildings traditionally used for cooking or other household purposes.

Some have become permanent homes.

But local officials say many lack the permits and registration required for residential buildings. Their occupants may be unable to sell, transfer or bequeath them.

Shulha says she has repeatedly urged residents to register these structures.

The situation is further complicated by housing certificates, displacement benefits and residency records that do not always reflect where people actually live.

Some residents have purchased apartments elsewhere but remain officially registered in their destroyed village homes. Others have returned to buildings that are not legally recognized as housing.

Officials also describe suspected cases of people receiving benefits linked to destroyed properties. Those allegations have not been independently established in the cases discussed by hromadske.

Vozniak said the authorities were not currently seeking to demolish unauthorized homes, although such action could theoretically be considered.

"Today, the task is to provide people with housing, not deprive them of it," he said.

For residents, the contradictions are often painfully practical.

The Silenkos have no running water. They collect it from a borehole elsewhere in the village, transporting it home in a trailer.

Their apartment in Mykolaiv exists. Their home is in Blahodatne.

Rebuilding on land that may still kill

Even where residents have the money and determination to rebuild, another danger remains: unexploded ordnance.

Blahodatne and Partyzanske were heavily contaminated by mines and shells during the fighting.

Residents described moving unexploded munitions themselves, sometimes carrying them away from homes and fields before emergency workers collected them.

Farmer Roman Pradun said he initially moved shells from his field into a tree line. There were so many that he eventually loaded them onto a tractor and transported them together.

Kovach said she and her son had found shells in their house and outbuildings.

"I carried them out with my own hands," she said. "I'm not sure my vegetable garden is clear of them even now."

Shulha described an even more dangerous attempt to make farmland usable: her husband walked ahead of a tractor looking for explosives while a hired driver followed. They later set dry vegetation on fire, hoping any remaining munitions would detonate.

These accounts illustrate the risks residents have taken; handling unexploded ordnance without specialist training is extremely dangerous.

Shulha said emergency services could not guarantee that Partyzanske was entirely clear of explosives, while Blahodatne had not been fully demined.

Vozniak said his community was among the most heavily contaminated areas and warned that clearing its land could take generations.

Can the villages survive?

Only a handful of families now live in Blahodatne.

Local officials have discussed merging it with Partyzanske and presented plans for new housing, a school, a soccer field and solar-powered buildings.

But the projects still need investors.

Shulha is skeptical that Blahodatne can recover. It has no water supply, and she says there are no firm plans to rebuild the village.

Vozniak is more optimistic.

"We are interested in preserving the community," he said, arguing that residents who received compensation still have the right to build on their land using their own money.

For families with children, however, the question goes beyond housing.

Snizhana Kunytska doubts that Partyzanske's school and kindergarten will ever be rebuilt. Most of the remaining residents are elderly, she said.

Her son Volodia, a third grader, has made his own world behind the family's damaged house.

He wants to assemble them into a dinosaur skeleton.

His mother has forbidden him from going near ruined buildings.

For now, the boy has a new project to look forward to: a playground delivered to Partyzanske by volunteers from Kharkiv.

As local women assemble its slides and swings, Volodia waits for the chance to play.

This report was produced with support from the Partnership Fund for a Resilient Ukraine, a multi-donor initiative funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, Estonia, Canada, Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Sweden.