Ashes on his face, his back bent, Feodor Mikhnov, 79, clutches with his soot-black hands the charred trunk of the apple tree in his garden. As if to catch your breath, as if to keep your footing. Behind him, the debris of the house where he still lived the day before with his wife Tetiana seems never to quit.
“We were watching TV around 5 p.m. when the first shell exploded not far from here.says this retired railway worker. We ran for cover, but we hadn’t been in the basement for ten minutes when an explosion sent the door flying across the room. That’s when we saw the house was on fire… » His voice breaks. “We ran to the neighbor to save our lives. I shouted, I begged: “Valia, please open the door!” »
The firefighters will arrive too late. This Saturday, July 2, his sons and a few neighbors formed a human chain to extract from the ruins the few personal belongings that survived the fire, before the employees of the town hall of Hloukhiv came to clear the ground. There will then be nothing left of the house in which the Mikhnovs lived for forty-five years.
Russian drone overflights
Hloukhiv and its 30,000 inhabitants are about ten kilometers from Russia, near a strategic road: the same one that the Russian army took to rush into Ukraine on February 24. Since its withdrawal from the region in early April, it has established new positions on Russian territory, from where its artillery harasses the Ukrainian troops responsible for preventing a new incursion.
“They won’t attack, but they want to keep us under pressure », Comments Alexei (1) in front of the trenches occupied by his brothers in arms of the Ukrainian National Guard, on the edge of Hloukhiv. This strategy would seek to tie up forces in the region that Ukraine would make better use of on other battlefields. “Every night, Russian drones fly over our positions, and every day there is shooting. The governor of Sumy has just recognized the Hloukhiv district as an active combat zone, but it’s been going on for weeks! »
Eight shells fell here on July 1, not counting the one that destroyed the Mikhnovs’ house. While there were no fatalities this time around, rockets fired by Russian helicopters killed four people in mid-June. “Why did you have to put your trench there? “says to the soldiers a man whose neighboring house had the windows blown out by an explosion. The men of the National Guard can only deplore it. “We had the order to stand here, but if we had had the choice, we would have gone elsewhere”says a soldier.
“Our lives are in our ears”
East of Hloukhiv, only five kilometers from the border, the Zaruts’ke bridge was destroyed. Ukrainian border guards have dug trenches on the western bank of the river and are discouraging passage. Parked in the shade, their white Renault Duster was riddled with around twenty shrapnel. “Come and see how the Russians have arranged my house! », shouts a villager. Natacha is 43 years old, and lives with her son and daughter in a beautiful green isba with fretted windows. She holds in her hand the shrapnel that broke several of her panes the day before.
“I no longer close the window at night to hear if a missile or a shell is coming: our lives are in our ears smiles this energetic canteen employee whose husband, a volunteer, serves in the region. He would like her to go with the children to take shelter, but Natacha would have the feeling of abandoning her: she is the one who cooks for her unit. So she keeps up to date with alerts via the Governor of Sumy’s Telegram channel, and descends the eight steps leading to the cellar as soon as necessary.
The deep scars of tank tracks
Natacha remembers, however, the very recent times when Russians came to Hloukhiv to stock up on groceries, buy cosmetics or treat cavities, at cheaper prices than in their country. Similarly, local Ukrainians were happy to cross the border to visit relatives, or do more or less legal business – the region has a reputation for smuggling.
Not difficult either, in Hloukhiv, to find an old one to evoke the time when the bus more easily served Russian Kursk than Ukrainian Sumy. But the war broke all trade. In many cases, friends and relatives don’t even talk to each other.
Further north, the main road to Russia is scarily empty. Shells and tank tracks have left deep scars on this desperately straight line, steep as death. The villages bordering it have been cashing in for weeks. “No one is safe here”, sighs Andreï, 37, going up a street in Esman, fifteen kilometers from the border. Seventeen shells fell on the town on Saturday. But Andreï does not intend to leave. “If the Russians come back, we will meet them”, smiles this agricultural employee who has lived for a long time in Russia. Before adding: “We have everything we need to kill them. »