Natalia Valentinova Sitnik heard explosions and gunshots day and night for months. Even their cows and calves learned to hide behind trees when shells began to fall. His town, Snigurivka in southeastern Ukraine, was occupied by the Russians from April to November last year and became a war front. He says everything is calmer now, although the tranquility in Snigurivka includes that a month ago 10 missiles fell in one day and that hardly any people walk through the streets. Natalia, 66, lives in a double-height house filled with tulips and margaritas overlooking the Ingulets River, an idyllic spot where she prepares freshly milked milk, cream, butter and cheese that she sells to her neighbors. He starts crying when he thinks about the possibility that the announced Ukrainian counteroffensive will not go well, that the Russians will return, that his city will once again be a battlefront: "It is our hope to end this war and move forward."
Serhii and Olga Portianov also need the counteroffensive to be a success, but not to stay in their village, but to be able to return to it. The front line is changing and has left countless ruined municipalities in which living is no longer an option. Like Kamianka, on the desolate road from Izium to Sloviansk, along which only destroyed buildings and masses of iron are seen. Crossing it is like contemplating a gigantic Gernika razed along 45 kilometers. Serhii and Olga, 72, are determined to return home even if they are the only residents of the village, even if they have to sleep in a shed, even if the rubble and fields are littered with mines. Serhii speaks of the counteroffensive as the great hope: "It has to go well, we have to recover our lives, our houses, our villages, peace."
Roman is fighting. He lived for 23 years in Alcalá de Henares, Spain. Days after the war began, in the early hours of February 24, 2022, she decided to return to her country to enlist and defend the freedom and lives of people like Natalia, Olga or Serhii. And here he remains, at 52, now on the strategic Liman front, between Donetsk and Luhansk. Most soldiers are not professionals. Until a year and a half ago they led the life of any European: bakers, teachers, engineers, drivers... like Roman, who was a construction worker. His day to day today is fighting in an infantry company in a conflict that has already claimed the lives of some 20,000 Ukrainian soldiers, in addition to more than 130,000 wounded, according to estimates by the US intelligence services.
02:50
Video | Roman tells why he returned to his country from Spain.
Natalia, Serhii, Olga and Roman are some of the dozens of testimonies of civilians and military collected over more than two weeks by a team of journalists from EL PAÍS that has traveled the 1,200 kilometers of front. A portrait of the daily lives of civilians and soldiers and their hopes in the counteroffensive that will determine how far Ukraine can go in the liberation of the territory conquered by Russia.
Kiev weighs the best time to launch it. From Kharkiv province in the northeast to Kherson in the south, civilians and military survive as they count down the days until the country will decide its fate. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on 11th May on the BBC that the offensive needs more time to start, to avoid a greater number of casualties: "With what we have we can move forward, and I think successfully, but we would lose a lot of people, and that is unacceptable. That's why we need to wait a little longer."
Ready for combat
Ukraine is reserving its best soldiers for the counteroffensive. Two armored brigades explain that their youngest tankers have been trained abroad in the handling of the Leopards, and that they are already ready to enter combat. On the Donetsk battle line, infantrymen confirm that the best-trained troops have left the front line to take part in the impending full-scale attack.
The best that Ukraine has will be allocated to the counteroffensive, and this is armored like the Leopard. On the Zaporizhia front, Pastor, code name of an instructor sergeant of the 1st Armored Brigade, confirms what other armored units had indicated to this newspaper in recent months: that a German Leopard, an American Abrams or a British Challenger are equivalent to two or even three of the tanks most used by the Ukrainians and Russians. that is, the Soviet T-64 and T-72: "To be clear, it is as if the Russians had a Tavria [a simple Soviet utility manufactured by the Ukrainian company ZAZ] and we could have the option of driving a Mercedes. This is the difference between a Leopard and an Abrams compared to tanks like a T-72. The tanks are already here, our guys have already been trained for it."
The Leopards are Mercedes"
Instructor Sergeant of the 1st Armored Brigade codenamed Pastor
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Video | The drill sergeant explains the advantages of using Leopard tanks.
The youngest tankers of the 1st Brigade have been training with the Leopards in Poland. Older soldiers have stayed at the front with old Soviet tanks. Ukraine does not have as many human resources as Russia. One million men and women are involved in the defence of the state, and of these, about 700,000 serve in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. But the war front is extensive like no other in Europe since World War II and the rotations of soldiers on the front line are scarce: if the ideal would be to enjoy deliveries every two months, as General Sergei Melnik admitted in April to this newspaper, there are fighters who have not returned home for even 10 months.
Pastor hasn't had a single day off since the invasion began. Despite this, and like many other soldiers interviewed during two weeks of travel, this sergeant transmits an energy and temperance that hide any sign of fatigue. Artillery officers in Donetsk, special forces in Kherson, armored units in Zaporizhia, including the general in charge of Kharkiv province, Melnik, say that everything is ready for Ukraine to face the moment of truth. At the time when every man and woman, in the famous words of Winston Churchill, is called to give the best of himself.
The most basic military theory indicates that an attacking army needs a three-to-one superiority to subdue the defending side. But the challenge facing the Ukrainian Armed Forces is much more difficult. Since last summer, Russia has erected 800 kilometers of fortified defense lines, triple anti-tank barriers and obstacles against infantry, bunkers and covered positions for artillery and machine guns. Melnik ventured that the superiority Ukraine needs will be four to six.
Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba reiterated this spring that expectations for the counteroffensive are excessive, that the war will not end and that international military support will have to be maintained in the coming months. But the almost blank cheque so far given to Kiev by the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union may come to an end. And when the time comes to pressure Ukraine to negotiate a way out of the war, the more territory it has regained, the better.
The vast majority of Ukrainians do not want to know anything about negotiating with Russia, between 60% and 70%, according to the latest surveys carried out at the end of 2022. So thinks Raisa Stnelcova, an 80-year-old woman who lives in Nikopol, on the banks of the Dnieper. From Energodar, a city occupied since March 2022 and home to Europe's largest nuclear power plant [Zaporizhia], the enemy bombards the city daily. A Russian shell hit a block of flats near his. In the courtyard of her house, she takes advantage of the spring sun to talk to her friend and neighbor Nadia. He has had a son in the army for nine years and the idea of ending the war with advantages for Russia provokes a huge rejection: "I say no negotiations. The war will end with the absolute expulsion of Russia by Ukraine. So many people have died, so many young people have perished. What negotiations can we talk about?"
Like all Ukrainians, I trust Zaluzhni."
Olga Muja, resident of Orsiv, a small village near Nikopol
01:04
Video | Olga Muja exposes her faith in the Ukrainian army
The hope of civilians in the counteroffensive has a name and surname, that of Valery Zaluzhni, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Olga Muja is clear. He also lives opposite the Energodar nuclear power plant, in a hamlet of Marganets, and believes that if the missiles stop flying over his house and his apricot fields every night, if the Russian shells stop destroying his village, it will be because of the military genius of the commander in chief: "I do not know if the counterattack will go well, because I am a normal woman, but like all Ukrainians, I trust Zaluzhni." He adds another compelling reason to have an almost religious faith in the general: his son is fighting in the town of Bakhmut.
Millions of Ukrainians do not forget that their government ruled out full-scale invasion until a few hours before it began. Zaluzhni, on the other hand, as he explained to Time magazine, did not doubt that Russia would attack to disintegrate the Ukrainian state. And he prepared the army for it, outside of political power, with one priority: to protect Kiev. He moved entire regiments from his barracks to secret positions, changed the location of the anti-aircraft defenses and waited for the Russian offensive to begin. He allowed enemy troops to enter Ukrainian territory from the northern border, through the provinces of Chernihiv, Kiev and Yitomir, to ambush them and cut off their supplies. A month later, Russia withdrew from the assault on Kiev.
Generals such as Zaluzhni, the commander of the Army, Oleksandr Sirski, or the head of the intelligence services of the Ministry of Defense, Kirilo Budanov, are the heroes in whom the ordinary Ukrainian trusts. The average citizen thinks it's okay for Zelensky to be the face of the country abroad, but it's these young generals, versed in NATO doctrine rather than Soviet doctrine, who devised last September's surprise counteroffensive that drove Russians out of Kharkiv province; it is they who liberated half the province of Kherson in November despite the enormous political and military collaboration in the region in favor of Russia. It is they who must ensure that the country can exist without the Russian threat.
There are scenes that are worth a thousand words. In the center of Huliaipole, on the Zaporizhia front, there is practically no intact building. Until last February, fighting was fought in the area of the municipality. The Russian winter offensive in this sector was calamitous and the Kremlin troops retreated. Today the enemy is seven kilometers away. Russian artillery blows up the place every hour. Its inhabitants – some civilians and many soldiers – avoid walking through the center. Like Nina, who left her home and settled in a damp and dark basement-shelter where she lives with six other people in a single room. In the middle of the desolate picture of the village, on a wall still standing, someone graffitied Zaluzhni's face, as a symbol of hope in victory.
Ukraine receives support from almost everyone."
Svetlana Tsyba, municipal official in Kupiansk County
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Video | Svetlana Tsiba, in the kitchen of her home.
From the Kupiansk county on the northern front, municipal official Svetlana Tsiba also wants to express her admiration for Zaluzhni: "I see that Ukraine supports him, the people support him. From what we read, I have a very positive impression and there is hope." Sitting in the kitchen of her home, in a village that was occupied for months by the Russians and liberated in the Kharkov counteroffensive last summer, Tsiba puts her finger on the wound, in the sometimes competitive relationship that maintains the presidency with the commander in chief: "I would not want Zelensky to relieve Zaluzhni, I don't understand anything about military things, nothing about anything. But I want Zaluzhni to lead Ukraine to victory." What this woman appreciates about her president, like Muja, is that, for the first time, the population even feels pride in a political leader and that, thanks to his good work abroad, "Ukraine receives the support of almost everyone."
Zaluzhni declared at the end of 2022 that Ukraine needed 300 new tanks, 700 armored infantry vehicles and 500 NATO howitzers to liberate all the territories lost in this war. At the moment, it already has about 200 heavy tanks (150 of them Leopard tanks) and about 700 infantry vehicles. There are no official figures on the number of guns provided, although earlier this year, the Center for International and Strategic Studies estimated about 450 howitzers that NATO allies had supplied.
The Ukrainian air force has reiterated that without the American F-16 fighter jets, the success of the counteroffensive is at stake. The White House had so far refused to deliver these aircraft, for fear that Kiev will use them to attack Russian territory, but President Joe Biden on Friday backed an international initiative to start training Ukrainian pilots for the use of these devices and announced his endorsement of allied countries to deliver them. Meanwhile, Slovakia and Poland will compensate for this shortfall by transferring two squadrons — 12 aircraft each — of the less advanced Soviet MiG-29 fighters.
Military personnel shop in a supermarket in Kramatorsk (Donetsk) on May 10. Luis de Vega
"I want to live, but I'm no longer afraid of death"
The population that lives along these 1,200 kilometers of front is expectant. The military and the civil are intertwined. Some work for each other, cross paths in the supermarket, live together. Even if people try to get on with their lives and jobs wherever possible, war permeates everything. Children's math or language Zoom classes, which have gone from pandemic restrictions to online education with bombs as a background sound. Hospitals, which now treat the wounded instead of the sick. Women who learn through a Telegram message that their partner has just died fighting. Sirens that do not stop sounding. Or the villages where there are not even sirens, but incessant explosions heard daily by those who cannot or do not want to leave their homes.
En las ciudades grandes como Járkov o Zaporiyia, un poco más alejadas de la primera línea de frente, la vida cotidiana se abre camino. Los restaurantes y bares siguen teniendo clientes, los jóvenes toman copas y hacen fiestas. Y muchos han incorporado tanto la guerra a su realidad cotidiana que han dejado de tener miedo. Todos recuerdan a la perfección dónde estaban en la madrugada del 24 de febrero de 2022. La sensación de pánico, histeria, incertidumbre. “Yo estaba celebrando la boda de mi hermano fuera de mi ciudad”, recuerda Emil Prijodko, un joven veinteañero de Zaporiyia, ciudad en el Dniéper, a escasos 40 kilómetros del frente. “Estábamos en Borsipil. A las 5.13 me despertaron los misiles. La guerra había empezado. Noté cómo el corazón se me aceleraba, una vibración dentro de mí. Escuché más de 10 bombas caer cerca”.
Emil Prijodko, un joven veinteañero de Zaporiyia.Carlos Martínez
Now, more than a year later, one of his best friends has died fighting. A 12-year-old boy who was going to his crossfit classes lost his life along with his sister, father and mother. Grandma buried them all. But Emil no longer crawls when everything is vibrated by a missile: "I want to live, but I am no longer afraid of death. The war has changed everything. And to live in fear is to let Russia win." He speaks Russian with his family and friends. He speaks of peace and fraternity between peoples, but says with regret that Russia has pushed him to hate them.
The outcome of the counteroffensive is a matter of life and death for Zaporizhia because it would drive away the Russians and allow the city to regain some normalcy, as Kiev did. But for Emil's parents it is too late: they lost their business with the war in Donbas, a tour operator between Ukraine and Russia. His father has had to emigrate to another city in Ukraine to find a job. They are from the east, from a region that believed in the need for cultural and social ties with Russia. Until today. Emil recounts how the tables have progressively turned: a friend stopped listening to Russian music; another stopped speaking Russian to Ukrainian; One of her best friends has not been able to see her parents for more than a year, isolated in a village in the province occupied by the invader. He is pained by something very particular, linked to childhood: not being able to return to the coastal town on the Sea of Azov where the family has always summered, Kirilivka. Russia has not only taken away friends and peace: it has taken away the beaches of his childhood.
The inhabitants of some ruined villages, many of them Russian-speakers, confess their astonishment and disbelief at this savage war initiated by those they considered until recently brothers. "You see, this is russky mir," Olga repeats to herself as she removes rubble from her destroyed house in Kamianka. Russky mir, the Russian world, is a Russian nationalist concept that proclaims an identity and cultural unity for all Slavic peoples. According to Vladimir Putin and his spokesmen, Ukraine is part of the Russky mir, whether its inhabitants like it or not.
Abandoned tank in front of a house in the town of Kamianka.Luis de Vega
Kamianka's camps, like those in neighbouring villages, are littered with anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. There are practically no houses left standing. In Krasnopillia, 12 kilometers from Kamianka, the mayor, Serhii Bagrii, accompanies journalists along paths where the skeletons of destroyed armored vehicles rest. Also the vehicle of a neighbor who recently jumped through the air with a mine. In Krasnopillia, a demining team from the Ukrainian State Emergency Service specialized in opening safe roads around the power lines ends the day. Asked when they plan to finish clearing the region of mines, a technician answers without hesitation: 40 years. What seemed like an exaggeration was confirmed on May 17 in an interview on Ukrainian television by Irina Kustova, head of the Association of Deminers of Ukraine: the country will not be mine-free for at least 60 years.
This is the reality that awaits the territories that will now be the battlefield of the counteroffensive. Many are regions that Russia occupied with practically no resistance, in the face of a defending army that was not prepared and with the internal collaboration of politicians and part of society. The drums of war will reach villages and fields of Zaporizhia and East Kherson. The capital of this province, liberated last November, is on the front. Only 25% of the population is still in it. The commander of another special forces battalion based in the city cannot hide a certain pessimism. His men have been infiltrating behind Russian positions for too many months and the casualties are significant. There are strategic decisions – political and of the General Staff – that take him out of his boxes: the longer the counteroffensive is delayed, the more exposed his soldiers will be to informers.
For both this high-ranking officer and the inhabitants of Kherson there is no alternative: either the Ukrainian Armed Forces advance or their city will continue to be bombed or, in the worst case, the Russians will return and the place will become the scene of urban fighting like those that wiped Mariupol off the map.
"The motivation of the Russians is minimal"
The officers on the front line show a conviction in victory that does not seem imposed. Some of his best men criticize from anonymity decisions in the political and military leadership of the Armed Forces, but all are sure that the Ukrainian attack will take them to the coast of the Sea of Azov and to the gates of Crimea, that is, to the liberation of the provinces of Zaporizhia and Kherson.
Vladimir is the commander of a special forces battalion operating on the Dnieper River on the southern front. The river, one kilometre wide, is here the grey area that nobody controls: on one bank are the Ukrainians and on the other, the Russians. Vladimir has a pronounced beard, from someone who long ago stopped worrying about his physical appearance, his face is toasted for hours in the sun. In the vehicle he carries silencers for the rifle and night vision goggles. He has just returned from Bakhmut, where he conducted a covert operation beyond enemy lines. He is tired, he rejects many decisions of his superiors, but he is more than optimistic: he does not doubt the triumph, because the enemy is worse organized.
His men have been infiltrating Russian positions on the eastern side of the Dnieper River for months and he is sure that when they receive the order to start the counteroffensive and storm the river, the Russians will retreat: "Their motivation is minimal. The first time they are under fire, they will leave; That's how it's been until now." Vladimir has no doubt that his men will be in Crimea this year, the peninsula unilaterally annexed by Putin in 2014 and which Moscow considers an inalienable part of Russian identity.
Kirilo Babii, lieutenant of the 43rd Artillery Brigade, during his interview with EL PAÍS. Luis de Vega
Kirilo Babii is a lieutenant, officer of the 43rd Artillery Brigade on the Donetsk front. He has something of a warrior monk. Slow, sensitive to nature, he wears dreadlocks and a hermit's beard. In another life I wanted to be an architect. He quotes journalists on a hill in Kramatorsk from which columns of smoke and missiles can be seen streaking across the sky. Babii gives a short master class on how artillery works, its essential role in opening the way for tanks and infantry in their advance. Of their role in wearing down the morale of the enemy at the moment of assaulting their positions.
In their brigade they have howitzers from NATO countries, including the American HIMARS, the most decisive rocket launcher of this war, capable of hitting targets with a large explosive charge and enormous precision 80 kilometers away – when the average distance of Western howitzers is 30 kilometers. The transfer of heavy military vehicles these weeks on the eastern front, between Kharkiv and Donetsk, is so intense that, something exceptional, the special envoys of EL PAÍS could see two trucks of HIMARS shuttles moving in the vicinity of Izium. All mobile artillery batteries constantly change their positions to avoid detection. Another sign of the coming offensive is the constant circulation of transport trucks of large vehicles: during the day they move empty because it is night when they move with their cargo: more and more armored vehicles arriving at the front.
Babii's gaze is penetrating and he stares at the journalists to tell them, completely seriously, that this 2023 they will be able to meet again in Crimea. The Black Sea peninsula is a special place for Babii: it is where she was born, it is the most important thing in her life. It hurts him not to be able to go back. It pains him that, since 2014, it has been repopulated with thousands of settlers brought from Russia. He knows that what awaits them there may not be a welcome like that of the Allies when they liberated Paris in World War II: "It is necessary that the Ukrainians who have left Crimea since the annexation return, because you must not only recover the territory, you must recover its people."
As the days go by and the decisive hour approaches, the anxiety among the population and the military increases. Oleksii Danilov, secretary of the National Security Council, revealed in April that no more than five people had all the details of the counteroffensive. Each commander or soldier from his position only sees one piece of the great puzzle that will be the attack: from the sergeant in Bajmut who laments that they do not have enough resources because they are being reserved for the large-scale attack, to the special forces unit that wants to advance now. Everyone has doubts and hopes, and everyone is united by faith in the myth of Zaluzhni. The mayor of Krasnopillia, Serhii Bagrii, sums it up: "We have no choice. It's our life."
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