NATALYNE, Ukraine – At a school where Russian forces had set up a base in the southern Kherson region of Ukraine, three of their staff armored vehicles remained in possession – for the time being. They were damaged when the Ukrainian army recently forced the occupation soldiers to return from this area. Over the weekend, three locals hit a vehicle to save spare parts. The ground was still covered with ammunition. The other two cars were parked behind the building, in a lavender field, a terrifying contrast to the idyllic rural landscape. The new Russian positions are just three miles from this point, but improvised engineers seemed not to worry. The day had passed quietly. Only a column of smoke – an indication of an artillery attack – had appeared on the horizon all day. And he was on the Russian side of the front line. With Moscow focusing its efforts on occupying territory in the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine – hitting Kiev cities, towns and troops with an almost constant artillery barrage – Ukraine has managed to make steady gains in the south. Village by village, most of the strategically important Kherson region is returning to Ukrainian control – another sign that Russian forces may be overstretched with a front line spanning about 300 miles. Regaining control of the Kherson, a rich agricultural area with access to the Black Sea, is crucial for Ukraine. It is the only position occupied by the Russians west of the Dnieper River and a prime position to launch any future offensive under the Black Sea coast towards the main port of Odessa. The Ukrainian counterattack is squeezing the Russian positions from two directions – the west and the north. “Here, you can chase them,” said a Ukrainian reconnaissance commander in the area whose call sign is “Makhno.” “They have committed everything to the east.” Residents of the area say they have stopped spending every night in their underground hideouts. The bombing by the Russian-controlled side has not stopped, but the people are just used to it. Most of the Kherson region has been occupied since the first week of the war – the first major land grab by Moscow since the advance of its tanks and troops from the Crimean peninsula, which Russia invaded and annexed in 2014. Latest updates from the Ukraine war But maintaining territory has proved challenging, with more Russian forces concentrated northeast. Near the school in Natalyne, another village that had been considered a “gray zone” – a regime for areas considered to be completely out of control – returned to Ukrainian control a week ago. For the approximately 75 people left in the city, the Russian occupiers went door to door and confiscated their phones, creating an information blackout for most. Little did they know that the Ukrainians were successfully carrying out counterattack operations on this front until the night when the Russians suddenly withdrew, under the pressure of Ukrainian artillery raids. The villagers said that their daily life had not changed much, even with the departure of the Russians. Their home was still a war zone. Soldiers continued to patrol the streets – only now wearing Ukrainian uniforms. The sounds of battle remained loud and narrow. “But I would rather our children be here than theirs” said Alyona Kharaim, who was out for a bike ride to get milk on Saturday afternoon with her husband and young daughter. Along a dirt road leading here, a group of children have set up their own checkpoint for passing cars. A 12-year-old girl playfully asked Washington Post reporters to say a code word – “old-fashioned”, a type of Ukrainian bread – before letting them pass. Ukrainian soldiers who saw it laughed that the children apparently learned to change their password regularly – for security reasons, of course. One that they used in the past was a vulgar humor about Russian President Vladimir Putin. In Ukraine, a dangerous journey to bury a 13-year-old girl In the town of Novovorontsovka, on the northern border of the Kherson region, residents of a bombed-out apartment building covered their neighbors’ windows with plastic. The glass broke a long time ago. Most people had left the city, but a handful had remained. Mykola Kostitsyn, 66, was holding pieces of shrapnel in the palm of his hand. In the beginning, pieces of artillery that were destroying his neighborhood were a novelty and people were picking them up. But now it’s so much that no one cares anymore. “Why bother picking them up?” he said. “Every day there are more and more. How many of these things can you collect? The bombing has become so much a part of the daily routine for Liudmyla Denysenko, 59, and her 86-year-old mother, Anastasia Bilyk, that they wait for their walls to crack from the blasts before bothering to move to their cellar for shelter. They are also waiting for the word from Denisenko’s son, fighting for Ukraine somewhere on the huge front. He only calls once a day and never tells him his location. On Saturday afternoon, he was worried that he had not checked in yet. Maybe he could fight around the Hersonissos area, he said, helping the counterattack end the bombing of their home. “It would be great if they were pushed even further,” he said. “Because we can not continue like this.” Serhiy Morgunov contributed to this report.
