MOn Tuesday, Oksana and her family couldn’t escape fast enough. They didn’t know it, but for the first time, regular Ukrainian troops had invaded Russia. Moscow’s military immediately struck back, bombing their village about 11 kilometers from the border.
“It was 9 a.m. and the first glide bomb hit the village,” she said, and its force – “very frightening, much bigger” than normal shelling – was so great that they immediately knew they had to flee. “Our neighbor left first with his children and then came back and picked me, my sister and my family up,” the mother of two explained.
Like hundreds of others from the Ukrainian border areas where the surprise attack took place last week, Oksana and her family headed south to Sumy, normally a 40-minute drive away. They have rented a property and are now considering what to do next in an overcrowded refugee camp in the city.
Others who registered as internally displaced persons tell similar stories. Although there had been regular cross-border shelling before, this time it was different. “What happened last week is a hundred times worse,” said 69-year-old Mykola, who was evacuated with his wife on Sunday from Junakivka, eight kilometers from the border.
Ukraine’s civilian authorities received little official warning of the attack, although some people in the area were up to something. Nevertheless, as soon as the attack began, they announced the mandatory evacuation of 6,000 people from villages 5 to 10 kilometers from the border. It is unclear when they will be able to return.
Meanwhile, fighting continues on the Russian side of the border, although there are occasional attacks from behind the Ukrainians. A small multi-story building next to a residential area in southern Sumy was destroyed by a single rocket on Sunday afternoon. Eight civilians living nearby were injured and a trail of smoke was visible across the countryside.
After nearly a week, Ukraine has captured 28 villages in Kursk Oblast, which borders Ukraine’s depopulated Sumy region, according to Alexey Smirnov, Russia’s acting regional governor. On Monday, he said the Ukrainian invasion was up to 12 km deep along a 40 km front, Russian state media reported.
A few hours later, Ukraine indicated that the area it controls was much larger. President Volodymyr Zelensky published a clip in which the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, presented a progress report. “Currently, we control about 1,000 square kilometers of the territory of the Russian Federation,” he said.
The territories are modest compared to the enormous size of Russia and Ukraine as a whole. But Ukraine’s attack is the first time since World War II that part of Russia has been occupied – and President Vladimir Putin on Monday promised “a dignified response” to an attack whose motive he described as primarily political.
“The main task of the Defense Ministry is, of course, to expel the enemy from our territory,” Putin said. However, there are no signs so far that the Russian armed forces have been able to stop the Ukrainian invaders, who appear to be gaining ground around Sudzha, eight kilometers across the border.
In his most detailed comments yet on the incursion, the Russian president also said that Ukraine was trying to improve its position “with the help of its Western masters” ahead of possible peace talks – suggesting that he believes Ukraine is trying to hold onto land for a possible post-war territorial swap.
There is little sign of serious peace talks, although the Kremlin has previously indicated it is willing to end the war along the current lines of control, which would leave Russia with about 18 percent of Ukraine. Ukraine has repeatedly said it wants to restore its internationally recognized borders and seeks membership in NATO, which Russia has previously rejected as unacceptable.
In Sumy, the 150 or so refugees waiting for help seemed to show little interest in such an immediate peace, although many of them said they had little hope of returning home any time soon, given the danger so close to the border.
However, no one blamed Ukraine’s surprise attack for their displacement, arguing instead that the attack was a necessary form of defense. Liudmyla, 54, from the village of Khotin, was close to tears at times as she said she was worried about the safety of her husband, who is still trying to harvest soybeans on their border farm.
But when asked if it was right to attack from her neighborhood and put her family in danger, her mood immediately brightened. “I was euphoric, euphoric,” Liudmyla said. “Absolutely, 100% – they should have done it sooner. I wish I could have done it myself.”
Mykola, who lost his right hand before the war, shared a similar view. “We should have done something. We need to liberate our territory somehow. Last year our offensive failed, but this year, with Western help, we seem to be in a better position,” he said, even praising the support of former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
“So we hope they succeed and continue to be successful because, as far as we know, if they succeed, we will receive even more help from Europe and America,” he added.
