Updated September 11, 2022 at 8:12 PM EDT|Posted September 11, 2022 at 5:55 PM EDT
Ukrainian military vehicles travel along a main road in the Kharkiv Oblast region on September 11. A fast-moving Ukrainian counteroffensive pushed Russian forces into a stunning retreat from key strategic areas in the northeastern Kharkiv region. (Heidi Levine)
ZALIZNYCHNE, Ukraine — In the end, the Russians got away any way they could Friday, on stolen bikes, disguised as locals. Hours after Ukrainian soldiers poured into the area, hundreds of Russian soldiers camped in the village had disappeared, many after their units abandoned them, leaving stunned residents behind in the ruins of a 28-week occupation.
“They just dropped rifles on the ground,” Olena Matvienko said Sunday as she stood, still disoriented, in a village littered with ammunition boxes and burned vehicles, including a loaded Russian tank on a flatbed. The first investigators in Kharkiv had just arrived to collect the bodies of civilians shot by the Russians, some of whom had been exposed for months.
“I can’t believe we went through something like this in the 21st century,” said Matvienko, through tears.
The Russians’ hasty flight from the village was part of a startling new reality that took the world by surprise over the weekend: February’s invaders are on the run in parts of Ukraine they occupied early in the conflict.
The Russian Defense Ministry’s daily briefing on Sunday included a map showing Russian forces retreating behind the Oskil River on the outskirts of Kharkiv region, a day after the ministry confirmed its troops had left the area from Balakliya and Izyum in the Kharkiv region, after a decision. to “regroup”.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Valery Zaluzhny, said Ukrainian forces had retaken more than 3,000 square kilometers (1,158 miles) of territory, a claim that could not be independently verified, adding that they were making progress towards the east, the south and the north.
“Ukrainian forces have penetrated Russian lines to a depth of up to 70 kilometers in some places,” reported the Institute for the Study of War, which closely monitors the conflict. They have captured more territory in the past five days “than Russian forces have captured in all their operations since April,” said their campaign assessment released on Sunday.
The apparent collapse of Russian forces has sent shockwaves through Moscow. The leader of the Chechen republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, who sent his own fighters to Ukraine, said that if there are no immediate changes in the conduct of the Russian invasion, “I should contact the leadership of the country to explain- the real situation. on the ground.”
Evidence of Ukrainian gains continued to emerge on Sunday, with footage of Ukrainian soldiers raising a flag in central Izyum, after it was abandoned by Russian forces, and similar footage from other towns and villages including Kindrashivka, Chkalovske and Velyki Komyshuvakha .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky refused to elaborate on his army’s next moves, except to say in an interview with CNN: “We will not stand still. We will move forward little by little.”
In a strong statement in Russia on Sunday night, Zelensky insisted that the invaders would be expelled. “Read my lips,” he said. “Without gas or without you? Without you. Without light or without you? Without you. Without water or without you? Without you. Without food or without you? Without you. Cold, hunger, darkness, and thirst are not so fearful and deadly to us as your “friendship and brotherhood.” “
Ukrainians emerged in the chain of newly liberated villages southeast of Kharkiv celebrating the end of their ordeal and wondering if it is really over. “Only God knows if they will come back,” said Tamara Kozinska, 75, whose husband was killed by a mortar blast shortly after the Russians arrived.
It’s by no means over, military experts warned. Russia still holds about a fifth of Ukraine and continued shelling over the weekend in several regions. And there is no guarantee that Ukraine will be able to keep the reclaimed areas safe. “A counter-offensive liberates the territory and then you need to control it and be ready to defend it,” Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov warned in an interview with the Financial Times.
But as Ukrainian soldiers continued to push into territory that had been controlled by Russia on Sunday, more of them were ready to see the campaign as a potential turning point.
Russian troops in deep retreat as Ukraine offensive advances in Kharkiv
In Zaliznychne, a small farming village 37 miles east of Kharkiv, residents were back to normal on Sunday, sleeping in dormitories instead of basements for the first time in months and trying to make contact with family outside.
Kozinska hasn’t seen her daughter since February, even though she lives 12 miles away, but she had just received word that she will come for her as soon as officials open access to the village, just as the weather it’s cold again
“I’ve been really scared of winter,” said the woman with lung problems, picking up a newspaper she had just handed out that gave her a number to call if she found a land mine. “We don’t have power and it’s hard for me to collect firewood.”
The first Russian soldiers to settle in the village, making the sawmill their base and launching rocket attacks on Ukrainian troops in the nearby town, had not initially harassed the residents, he said. When they shot pigs on an abandoned farm, they sometimes let the residents butcher some of the meat.
The death of a young Ukrainian soldier was felt by family, friends and the country
But as the occupation progressed, with the Russians rotating every month, the troops became more aggressive. One of them borrowed Kozinska’s phone.
“I gave it to him so he could call his mother, but he took my SIM card,” she said.
One of the medics treated Halyna Noskova’s back after she was hit by mortar shrapnel in her front yard in June. His 87-year-old mother removed the piece of metal. “It was still hot,” he said. The Russian bandaged her.
“They helped me, but I’m glad we’re freed,” Noskova, 66, said.
Residents, all Russian-speaking in this region adjacent to the Russian border, described generally more humane treatment than that experienced in occupied communities further west. The discovery of more than 450 bodies in Bucha, near Kyiv, many with signs of torture, sparked international outrage over the atrocities.
“They weren’t monsters, they were children,” said Matvienko, who once asked Russian troops to move the tank parked in front of his house. “I asked what they wanted from us and they said, ‘We can be here or we can be in jail.'”
Others told the villagers they were not there to fight Ukraine, but to “protect us from America.”
The Russians’ most important rule for residents was to enter at 6 p.m. and stay there, quietly and in the dark, several said. Violating that order could be fatal, as two men on the street soon found out. The friends were drinking and had the light on, said Maria Grygorova, who lives in the townhouse next door. The next morning he found them on the ground.
“Konstiantyn had two bullet holes in his head,” he said.
She and two friends buried them in the side yard. The two friends themselves dug them up on Sunday, as Ukrainian war crimes investigators looked on.
The Kharkiv team picked up two more bodies during their visit, including a security guard whose remains have been rotting on the floor of an asphalt plant’s gravel elevator for months, although the Russians used it as a sniper tower. One investigator repeatedly vomited over a guardrail as officers collected the remains.
“We are here investigating war crimes,” said Serhii Bolvinov, chief investigator of the Kharkiv Regional Police, as his crew waited for demining technicians to decontaminate an area of explosives before they could recover some of the bodies.
Battle for Kyiv: Ukrainian valor, Russian mistakes combine to save capital
Residents were afraid of the Russians, several villagers said. But they were almost pitied in their struggle to escape the recent Ukrainian attack.
Half the soldiers fled in their vehicles in the first hours of the offensive, they said. The stranded became desperate. Some residents heard their radio pleas to unit commanders for someone to come get them.
“They said, ‘You’re on your own,'” Matvienko explained. “They entered our houses to take clothes so that the drones could not see them in uniform. They took our bikes. Two of them pointed guns at my ex-husband until he handed over his car keys.”
Cheered Ukrainian officials said they would no longer negotiate a peace deal that would allow Russia to maintain an occupying presence in any territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk controlled by Russia or separatists backed by Russia for years.
“The point of no return has passed,” Reznikov, the defense minister, told the Yalta European Strategy summit in Kyiv on Saturday.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov appeared to backtrack on his earlier claim that the time was not right for peace talks as Russia prepared to hold a round of mock referendums with the ‘objective of annexing the occupied territories.
“We are not against talks; we do not reject talks,” Lavrov told the state television program, “Moscow. Kremlin. Put.” Rather, “the naysayers should understand that the longer they delay this process, the harder it will be to negotiate.”
Robyn Dixon reported from Riga, Latvia. Mary Ilyushina in Riga and Isabelle Khurshudyan in Kyiv contributed to this report.
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