The thrill of a precise artillery strike faded as the Ukrainian defenders of the last village before the invading Russians cowered to safety in the ruined remains of a school.

Plumes of smoke revealed where the Russians had taken their recent casualties along the flat and almost entirely lifeless terrain of Ukraine’s southern front.

A drone hovering somewhere over the darkening horizon bounced back images that suggested two Russians had been killed in one of the artillery strikes.

The news sparked a moment’s excitement among the middle-aged men in the huge howitzer that the Ukrainians had momentarily wheeled into an open field.

But a day of heavy return fire on what remained of the frontline village of Kobzartsi threatened to worsen significantly as the sun went down.

Two medics stationed with the unit exchanged knowing looks and took a few more steps back into the protective ruins of the gym next door.

“They don’t let us forget that they are still there,” 24-year-old welder-turned-medic Andriy said of the Russians stationed on the opposite side of the field.

“It can get bad out here,” agreed his slightly older partner Oleksiy.

Both men and others serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces conceal their full identities for military security reasons.

“But we know their side suffers a lot more than we do,” Oleksiy said with a hint of a smile.

That trust could prove vital as Ukraine seeks to keep a rousing northern counteroffensive from bogging down on the treacherous steppes of the south.

Ukraine’s ultimate goal is Kherson – a gateway city to both the Kremlin-annexed Crimea and the Azov Sea coast, which fell under full Russian control during the war.

Military analysts believe Ukrainians have about six weeks before winter freezes make further progress much more difficult.

But the Russians intervene.

An aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Moscow had sent more reinforcements and now has 30 tactical battalion groups around Kherson.

Each of these fully equipped units has up to 800 soldiers and controls a specific section of the front.

“This is a formidable military force that will be very difficult to break,” Presidential Assistant Oleksiy Arestovych warned this week.

The artillery battles in the areas north of Kherson are fought by tanks and other large guns across open fields filled with almost nothing but ruins.

The settlement of Kobzartsi is one of many on the battle map of Ukraine that hardly exist anymore.

The two main streets are lined with the skeletal remains of cottages and piles of rubble where larger buildings once stood.

The soldiers said a few dozen locals were still hiding in their basements.

But few spend time above ground, both because of the shelling and the danger of unexploded ordnance strewn across roads and vegetable fields.

“They almost always hide,” paramedic Oleksiy said.

“We try to help and some volunteer groups sometimes deliver supplies. But you can only do so much.”

The commander of the artillery unit is a square-featured, 47-year-old who named his dog Javelina and took the nickname Anaconda.

The dog’s name honors the US anti-tank missile that played a crucial role in repelling the Russian attack on Kyiv in the first month of the war.

But Anaconda admits he didn’t really know how to use modern weapons when he was drafted from his job in customs when Russia invaded on February 24.

“You feel bad when you fire something and miss. You’re really getting ready,” Anaconda said with a self-deprecating laugh.

“But we’re really trying our best. We learn as we go. We’re getting better every day.”