Julia Pogrebna has given up telling the homesick villagers that now is not the time to return to Ukraine’s southern front.
The energetic 32-year-old volunteer distributed boxes of food to a group of pensioners who had given up waiting out the war and returned to the riverside village of Lymany.
The sun sank over a yawning bay separating villagers from Russian forces pouring in from the nearby Crimea peninsula, which the Kremlin captured in 2014.
Stubborn Ukrainian troops, hiding in the surrounding forests, loaded Grad rockets onto trucks before the next round in the Battle of Kherson.
The hour of the night’s firefights drew near, and the villagers scurried down to their cellars laden with weekly supplies of rice and canned meat.
Pogrebna shook her head and donned her bulletproof vest as the sun went down.
“It would be a lot easier if those people weren’t out here,” she said with a gentle smile.
“But how can you ask someone who has lived in a place for 70 years – where they know every blade of grass – to leave? Especially when he has nowhere else to go.”
– ‘Back to work’ –
Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the north and Ukraine’s ever-deeper encroachment to the south has encouraged increasing numbers to relocate land dangerously close to the front lines.
Many return because they cannot afford to pay rent in places further from the war zone.
Others feel that they have exhausted their reception from relatives or friends.
And many just want to take care of their abandoned country houses and ramshackle apartments.
“It’s gotten a lot better here in the last few days,” said school janitor Yekaterinodar Dudik with a determined nod.
“The last bomb fell five days ago? I went back to work today,” said the 27-year-old.
All but a few hundred of Lymany’s 4,000 residents fled when the Russians moved through the village eight months ago when they invaded eight months ago.
Local officials say about 1,000 are here today.
“I visit four such villages a week,” Pogrebna said. “Some places we can only reach on foot across fields.”
– “Men go out” –
The soldiers, who were shoving car-length missiles down the tubes of a multiple launcher system some distance away, had no hesitation when the villagers returned.
Corporal Oleksandr Veretennik said artillery battles were still common in the surrounding forests and fields.
“But it will be a little easier for us,” said the 32-year-old.
“I don’t think they’re running out of guns. I think they’re running out of men.
The Kremlin has sent reinforcements from all directions towards Kherson – Ukraine’s gateway to Crimea and the economically important Sea of ??Azov.
The eponymous region of the city is just a few minutes drive from the gated cottages in Lymany.
The soldiers of the 28th Brigade brandished drone killer cannons and addressed air defense systems that made the Lymany skies seem a little safer.
“This is a technology and innovation driven war. And our engineers are second to none,” said one soldier nicknamed the Balkans.
“I want to thank our allies, but most of the technology we use is our own.”
– ‘Less Lonely’ –
Russia’s retreat on the ground has forced the Kremlin to switch to an airstrike using cruise missiles and suicide drones.
Moscow is mainly targeting power plants and other civilian infrastructure – a campaign apparently aimed at demoralizing Ukrainians by leaving them without winter heat and light.
But Lymany is already cold and dark.
During the day, residents roll out gas cartridges to boil potatoes and tea.
Many prefer to huddle in a central bunker at night rather than stay alone in basements.
Village elder Natalia Panashiy moves around a lot because the building that houses Lymany’s headquarters is now in ruins.
She rushed in to direct traffic in the noisy line of locals waiting to collect their weekly food rations before dark.
“Of course it’s still too early to return,” said the 54-year-old.
“But I’m glad they are because now I feel less lonely out here.”
