Koryukivka municipality was one of the first to meet the occupiers and demonstrated a powerful movement of resistance. Local residents blocked the roads and stopped the tanks with their bare hands. At the beginning of April, the Armed Forces of Ukraine drove out the Russian army, and the municipality began to recover and return to normal life. The U-LEAD with Europe Programme helped this municipality, says Koryukiv City Mayor Ratan Akhmedov.
According to him, as a result of the invasion, the municipality was effectively cut off from other territories of Ukraine for 41 days. The occupiers destroyed bridges and roads, and the only way was through the zone of active hostilities.
Because of this, the municipality had to use available resources. In particular, the local government launched a bread factory that stopped a few years ago, and united the efforts of farmers.
"We managed to start a bakery that stopped operating several years ago. In the neighboring municipality, the work of the cheese factory was resumed. Local farmers got to work. The greatest difficulty, probably, was with the medicines. Medicines for which there was the highest demand disappeared from the shelves in the first days. And it turned out that someone had enough medicine, and someone did not have it at all. That's why they delivered everything they needed across the river - by boats," recalls Ratan Akhmedov.