Ambushes and nostalgia on the banks of the Ukraine River, on the front line

Now, nearly three years after the Russian invasion, Kremlin forces have wreaked panic and destruction on its banks in a war of attrition that pits invaders and defenders on opposite banks.

“This is the front line now. They are on one side and we are on the other,” said the 72-year-old woman in the emptied village of Sadovod, the plastic-covered windows of her house ripped out by a recent strike. .

His neighbor lived his entire life in the nearby riverside village of Dvorichna and cried on his knees as he recounted the people killed there and the death of his granddaughter in a nearby Russian strike.

The Oskil, which winds into Ukraine’s Kharkiv region from Russia, is swept by freezing winds and surrounded by vast snow-covered fields dotted with Ukrainian bunkers and zigzag trenches.

Russian forces crossed it quickly and easily during their invasion in 2022, but were driven back months later in a rout that embarrassed the Kremlin.

But his forces are now in retreat.

“If the Russians cross”

Russian troops are either entrenched on its eastern bank, fighting furiously in its direction, or boldly attempting to break through – all at a precarious time for Ukraine on the other side of the sprawling front line.

“It’s a physical barrier that has military utility, but it’s almost also a psychological barrier now,” said Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army major general and war analyst.

“If the Russians manage to overcome the Oskil, it means things are really bad,” he told AFP.

Earlier this month, in a sleepy meander near Dvorichne, Russian troops established a beachhead on the Ukrainian side by sending infantry in small boats. Kyiv said they had been destroyed.

And in the war-ravaged city of Kupiansk – one of the successes of the Oskil-divided 2022 Ukrainian counter-offensive – Russian forces recently managed to return wearing Ukrainian military uniforms before being pushed back, a declared an official to AFP.

During a recent AFP visit to Kupiansk, Ukrainian soldier Igor was perched on a destroyed railway bridge spanning the Oskil, surveying the warring districts on the other side.

Smoke was billowing after an attack.

His unit, within the 114th Brigade, uses drones to resupply troops on the other side and kill attacking Russian troops.

“It’s hard, very hard. But ultimately, we get through it and we hold on as long as possible,” he told AFP.

“I want them to survive”

Underscoring Russia’s gradual advances, Ukrainian authorities recently ordered families with children to evacuate towns near the river in the Kremlin’s crosshairs.

In the village of Osynovo, just west of Kupiansk, where an overturned railcar next to another destroyed bridge bears witness to heavy fighting in 2022, train services ended this month.

Mykola, a local who served in the Soviet army near Moscow, once fished and had drinks with friends along the Oskil to relax and calm his nerves.

The octogenarian, who says Russian forces took his village “in the blink of an eye” before fleeing later in 2022, can no longer go near the river and has new worries.

“My two sons are fighting. I just want them to survive,” he told AFP in tears, as artillery fire echoed in the distance.

It remains to be seen whether Russian forces will attempt another large-scale crossing as in 2022.

“You only undertake these crossings if you really have to,” Ryan said, citing the enormous military resources required.

“Is there a significant objective on the other side of the river for the Russians, which would have operational, strategic or political importance for them? That is the real question,” he added.

“I burst into tears”

Russia persists. Ukrainian military analysts said last week that their forces had, in a second recent attempt, established a beachhead near Dvorichne.

Further south, in the village of Yatskivka in the Donetsk region, where the Oskil River ends, Inna Yurchenko is nervous.

When the 52-year-old trader returned from kyiv with her aging mother after the city was liberated by Ukrainian forces in 2022, she was devastated.

His village and nearby vacation cabins were crowded with tourists, including from towns still occupied by Russia, resting by the river.

“I burst into tears remembering what it was like before,” she said, surrounded by tangles of snow-dusted metal and stacked bricks that were once her neighbors’ homes.

Russia’s advance in its industrial region is accelerating faster than at any time since the Kremlin invasion began.

Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have publicly said their army lacks the manpower and firepower to stop the Kremlin’s march.

“I’m afraid of what will happen,” Yurchenko said.

© 2024 AFP