While Russia celebrated Victory Day, Ukraine celebrated its own victories in the current war. Ukrainian forces launched an offensive against Putin’s troops north of Kharkiv, liberated a number of towns and villages, and pushed the Russians to the border. BBC correspondent Quentin Sommerville and cameraman Darren Conway were with Ukrainian troops when they went on the offensive.

Raisa Opanasivna approaches Ukrainian soldiers to the sound of Russian shells falling on her village. Elderly hunchbacked woman carries two large plastic bags. Under the knitted gray hat you can see her slender weathered face.

She hadn’t seen that many people in months. Since the beginning of the war, her native village of Ruska Lozova has been under Russian occupation.

The Russians went from house to house. “They checked the houses, asked if we had guns. But I don’t have anything. I don’t even have closets. I’m alone,” Raisa said.

Without electricity, water, communications and almost no food, the villagers were isolated from Kharkiv, just 8 km south. From the surrounding forests and hills, Russian mortars and artillery fired incessantly at Ukraine’s second largest city.

The village of Raisa was destroyed, but the worst thing is that because of Russia’s war, its whole world was destroyed. In eastern Ukraine, the war is not just a rethinking of people’s relations with Russia – the border with which runs only 30 km from Ruska Lozova – but a more personal reassessment of what it means to be a Russian-speaking Ukrainian.

The recently released Ruska Lozova is at the center of Ukraine’s resistance to Russian aggression. Coordinated efforts under the command of the top military command of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense, National Guard and Regular Army are launching an offensive in an effort to push the Russians along the 32-kilometer front line. In Belgorod, Russia, near the border, Russia is gathering troops for a possible counterattack.

We were in Kharkiv a month ago, when the Russians were literally at the city gates. The shelling was constant, the shells hit the houses on the street where we were. The situation has deteriorated so much that it was easier to count the hours of silence (only a few) than the hours of explosions (many). There was a feeling that we were on the brink of an abyss, and another coordinated Russian attack could destroy the city.

Entire residential buildings were destroyed in the northern district of Saltivka. The people who stayed there had no electricity or water, and they were forced to cook on small fires, which were lit directly on the stairwells.

But the specter of Russian victory hovering over the city is now gone. Just this week, I was sitting in a park in the center of the city with neatly trimmed grass, flower beds and enjoying ice cream from a coffee shop. The city is still largely empty, but the number of Russian artillery strikes has dropped from dozens daily to small. Air-raid sirens are still buzzing regularly, but Kharkiv is no longer on the brink of disaster.

Putin’s ground forces are being pushed back to the border by the Ukrainian army. The victory he had hoped for during the May 9 celebrations in Russia, here in Kharkiv, he will not win – and this could further disrupt Moscow’s plans.

Ukraine’s achievements, although modest at the moment, could have strategic consequences for Russia’s war in the Donbas, threatening Russian supply lines.

We are driving north of the city with Ukrainian troops, heading for the towns and villages that mark the new front line. The road is still littered with funnels and Russian missiles. On the outskirts of the route – destroyed Russian vehicles and burned trucks, which were used to block their initial attack on Kharkiv.

We drive fast – behind the wheel sits the commander of the volunteer detachment, who holds a gun at his feet. “The roadsides are mined,” he says as the car maneuvers between checkpoints and tank traps.

The feeling is scary – our car is the only one on the road. We know that there are still Russian tanks and artillery on the wooded hill in front of us. The Kharkiv war has changed – now it is a game of hawk and mouse, where drones on both sides are constantly circling and trying to pinpoint enemy tanks and cannons to fire at them with artillery.

Just five minutes ago, enemy guns stopped firing, the deputy commander tells me. They will start again soon.

We pass the Russian “Hail” lying in the ditch, and then to the right – a broken military green “Lada” with a white Russian Z sign on the door. “Russia’s secret weapon,” the commander said, laughing at his men.

Near Ruska Lozova, only burnt traces of a civilian car destroyed by a Russian shell remained on the road. There are no remains of the car, but its contents are scattered on the road – here is a pink blanket, there are some clothes. Several people were killed in the crash.

In the village you can see the consequences of the battle for control of us. Houses were destroyed by shelling, and some are still burning. One house we pass has a broken roof, but bright red tulips are lined up at its gates.

Now the war has become more dynamic, and the military does not stay in the open for long. They run quickly through the open and climb walls to avoid Russian fire from the forest, less than half a kilometer. They believe that the Russian military has left, but instead militants from the separatist Donbass are fighting. But the next day after our departure, the Russians were taken prisoner.

Suddenly we have to hide in a trench on the first line of defense, as Russian artillery opens fire again, and shells sweep overhead and fall on the other side of the village in a few seconds.

At the anti-tank position are ready-to-use American Javelins and their British counterparts. There are two volunteers here who answer me in French. They are Ukrainians, but joined the French Foreign Legion. One says he served for three years but actually deserted to join the fight for Ukraine.

This is a weapon that Russia has underestimated – the strength of Ukrainian solidarity. Even before Western military aid began to arrive, it was Ukraine that defended Ukraine. Among the volunteers here are an economist, businessman, mechanic and race champion.

I meet with the commander on the eve of Victory Day, which Russia and Ukraine celebrate as the victory of the Soviet Union over the Nazi regime in Germany during World War II, and ask him what this day means this year. He says the holiday has been tainted.

“I was born in the Soviet Union,” he continues, drinking freshly brewed tea. “Unfortunately, Russians use everything as a weapon. Our common dates, our common language, our common religion. Russia is not ashamed to use all means. That’s why everyone here now they hate the Russian language – even the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin is a persona non grata – that’s why our Church is divided, and everything Russian here will be renamed. ”

A few days ago, when I met Raisa in her gray coat and woolen hat, she was standing and trying to comprehend the destruction of her village and the cornerstone of her own life – Ukraine’s proximity to Russia.

This village has been home to Raisa for over 30 years. Her face is cut to pieces, but she says she is not in pain. When asked by a military doctor, she is reluctant to say that her finger hurts. Half of it is missing.

When she takes off her jacket, a deep cut opens on her thin arm. “Cut like chicken fillets,” she says. “Can you pull out the shrapnel?” She does not want to go to the hospital, but wants to return home. But the doctor says she will need stitches.

Maybe because she hasn’t seen people in months or because of a stroke last year, but her ability to speak is only now beginning to recover. And she tells her story.

A group of soldiers gathers around her. When I gave birth, there were three of us mothers. I was in the middle. They were screaming. I was calm. I took a strip of cloth from my shirt to my mouth. At the end I chewed it completely. The doctor told me to scream. But I said it didn’t matter. whether you shout or not. It still hurts. That’s how I gave birth to a son. Quiet. ”

The men around her shudder when she tells them to cut off the hanging skin with scissors. One soldier looks sick. The doctor sutures her wound. As she does so, she reflects on the fate of her village and the collapse of the empire she has witnessed – her home and her history in ruins. She lived in the Soviet Union when Russia and Ukraine were intertwined. Now they are mortal enemies. For years she lived in East Germany, where she became pregnant and returned to Ukraine to give birth on her own.

“My father and [Putin’s] father fought together against Hitler, didn’t they? Is that possible? And now we are fighting against each other,” she said. and now it’s our people. ”

With a bandaged hand, Raisa is escorted to a car, which is to take her to the Kharkiv hospital for an appointment with a surgeon.

Most people from the village are being evacuated, buses are waiting for those who do not have cars.

The Russian occupation tore the village apart, both literally and figuratively. Half a dozen locals were detained in the basement of one house. They are suspected of collaborating with the enemy. Their eyes are closed, balaclavas are taped to their heads, their hands are tied. At least one woman is among them. They are left alone in the room, then taken away for questioning by special services.

Their phones and social networks will be checked. At checkpoints on the way to Kharkiv, everyone who comes from the liberated areas is interrogated – they are looking for saboteurs. Collaborators face up to 15 years in prison or life imprisonment if their actions result in the deaths of Ukrainians.

It is unlikely that Raisa will ever be able to forgive Russia for its injuries. And with each battle, the people on the front line are freed from the shackles that held the two nations together before the war.

But the operation north of Kharkiv was not completed and was costly. This is just one front in what appears to be a protracted war.

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