‘Russians dug a grave in my garden. I’m filling it with fruit trees’

Tetiana Oleksiienko stands in her garden, proudly holding a bunch of Ukraine’s national flowers. The land is flat, ready to prepare for autumnal planting - but this is no ordinary garden, it is a symbol for the nation’s resilience, the determination of its people’s desire to rebuild and flourish again, to banish memories of Russia’s invasion, although next week marks six months of that ongoing atrocity.

However, if Ms Oleksiienko spends too long in her garden, the flashbacks start. Every square foot of where she lives has reminders of how Russian soldiers terrorised civilians and took over her home as one of their bases back in March.

The grape vines that hang from her roof mark where snipers sat as they kept guard over Andriivka, a small village 70km outside of Kyiv. The smashed-up terrace area, where she once had alfresco dinners with her family, is now a dumping ground for all the household appliances the occupiers destroyed, while squatting in the house she lovingly built with her husband. An oven, mirrors, and all manner of planks of wood and scraps of metal are piled high under the walnut tree – an eyesore in a place that had for so long been her sanctuary.

But most haunting of all for Ms Oleksiienko is the large area of her back garden that the Russians dug up, after they were instructed by their commanders to kill and bury Ukrainians.

“I find it hard to be here because I think I could be there in the ground,” she says, standing on top of the scarred earth that had once been a 7ft deep trench. Now, five months on since the Russians massacred her land, it is overgrown with weeds that have sprung up through the soil.

It is particularly hard for her, as someone who took so much pride in pruning her garden. Before the invasion on February 24, seeing fruit bloom on the apple, cherry and apricot trees that had been planted by her late husband, Anatoly, gave her so much pleasure. Then, in early March, tanks tore through the gates to her driveway, soldiers chucked a grenade into her house - for good measure - and then shot a male member of her family in the arm, forcing them all to flee and seek refuge in a neighbour’s shelter.

Ms Oleksiienko, widowed and nearing 70, trembles as she recounts the damage the Russians inflicted. “I still worry they will come back,” she says, tears falling down her sunburnt cheeks. “I’m crying because I worry that the Russians will still come from every corner,” she explains.

At her age Ms Oleksiienko should be enjoying her retirement. Instead, with the help of some neighbours, she has spent every day for the last three months repairing the chaos created by the invaders. It is hard work, least of all in the scorching summer heat.

No bother. “We are Ukrainian, we can do anything,” she says. “We love to work. God believes the war will end and we can rebuild.” So, they rolled up their sleeves and decided it needed to be her garden they set about fixing first. “The pit was too painful to look at any more,” she says, explaining why that had been her priority to clean up.

It was in March, not long after she had gone into hiding, that Ms Oleksiienko had been forced to go above ground and search for food, after their rations were running low. Aware that she had produce in her basement, she returned to her home to find the soldiers had moved in. It was here that she saw them digging with shovels and a tractor in her garden.

When she was interviewed and photographed for the Telegraph at the time she said: “I asked them: ‘What is this pit in my garden?’ And the soldiers said: ‘This is a cemetery.’ That’s what they said: ‘This is a graveyard for you.’” It is only because the Ukrainian Armed Forces drove the Russians from the village that they were not able to hide evidence of war crimes.

Ms Oleksiienko is all too aware that it is a stroke of luck that she was not murdered. Her mind obsesses over the “what ifs”, and that is when the choking, stifling sobs come. “They could have killed us all,” she cries, mopping her face.

She explains she finds it hard to “process” that the land she owns could have been filled with the bodies of innocent Ukrainians, many of whom are her friends. “It is the memories,” she says, shaking her head as if to rid herself of these thoughts.

In the time that the Russians were in Andriivka, they treated the trench they dug in her garden like wasteland, using it as a place to dump the remains of animal carcasses they had slaughtered, as well as dirty crockery from Ms Oleksiienko’s kitchen. The stench was “unbearable”, but Ms Oleksiienko and her friends simply got on with cleaning up the Russians’ mess. They had no choice.

Just beyond the garden fence stands the school where women and children were said to have been held hostage, in order to act as “human shields”. Locals still take it in turn to provide security to the village and base themselves at the school for long shifts. However, no one will bring themselves “to sleep in the school because it smells of blood”. Ms Oleksiienko grimaces. “Another scary reminder.”

The level of destruction created by the Russians carries its way through the village, having left their mark on almost every person and building here.

“All the time, what they did, is in our memories,” Ms Oleksiienko said. Even the lively chickens that roam around her garden are a reminder of the war. “Before the invasion we had 10 chickens, but the Russians ate all of them,” she said. Now she has six, donated by generous neighbours.

For now, the days are long and hot and Ms Oleksiienko does what she can to rebuild her home. Soon she will start replanting her garden. “I want to make it like it used to be. I’ll plant peach trees. Then apple,” she says, smiling. “And berry bushes,” she adds. “Lots of them.”