Two years ago, February 24th was meant to be 1 of the first cloudless days foreshadowing spring in north-eastern Ukraine. In the Sumy region, nestled in a vast forest landscape, 1 could instantly sense the change in the air. On that very same day, the hopes for fresh life were abruptly shattered by invading Russian troops and deafening explosions. The sky over the Sumy region, unfortunate adequate to have a 564-kilometre-long border with Russia, has not been clear always since.
Three 100 and seventy-eight, 3 100 and eighty-three, 3 100 and forty-one, 2 100 and seventy-four, 3 100 and ninety. As much as those numbers are tiring to read, the residents of the Sumy region have not had the luxury of just seeing them in the news. That is how many regular strikes they had to live through in just 5 days in mid-March 2024. In 2024 Russian air attacks on the region have drastically increased, making it the area with the highest number of recorded explosions since March 1st.
Locals frequently share stories of their makeshift air defence systems, which frequently affect military personnel utilizing their kitchen gardens to shoot down targets with firearms or, in more fortunate cases, anti-drone guns. Sadly, specified tales are more than just anecdotes. president Zelenskyy late instructed the military and diplomats to actively work on strengthening the region’s air defence. This is due to the fact that the current systems cannot defend the skies so long as Russia uses the maneuver of aerial assaults from outside the Ukrainian air defence zone.
The bordering areas are especially susceptible to specified attacks. In a “drop-and-forget” situation, Russian bombers launch precision-guided bombs (KABs) from a advanced altitude that allows them to follow a straighter path. This importantly reduces the time it takes to scope the target. In turn, the KABs’ comparatively long planned distance of up to about 80 kilometres enables Russian bombers to avoid entering the region possibly covered by Ukrainian air defence. Besides, specified aerial bombs deployed by the Russian air force are a much cheaper alternate to supersonic cruise missiles specified as the X-22. That is especially actual for unguided FABs (general intent high-explosive air-dropped bombs) that are fitted with unified gliding and correction modules that rapidly make them into precision-guided munition.
To this day, there have not been any verified instances of a successful neutralization of KABs, as the scope of missiles utilized by Ukrainian ground-based systems behind the front line is shorter than the planned distance of the bombs. Moreover, considering that Russia besides employs this maneuver on the front line, it is hard to imagine that the fewer long-awaited Patriot or SAMP-T systems and compatible missiles, capable of destroying aircraft at advanced altitudes and long distances, would be deployed in the bordering regions that are comparatively far from the main battlefield.
In March 2024 alone Russian aircraft dropped about 200 KABs on the Sumy region, with the bordering communities bearing the brunt of the aerial attacks. The local authorities study that the community of Velyka Pysarivka in Okhtyrka district, whose pre-war population exceeded 10 1000 people, has suffered the most. any villages have experienced demolition rates of 97 per cent, with Velyka Pysarivka’s community centre itself enduring around 50 per cent damage. After the mass evacuations in March, which were frequently decentralized due to constant shelling and aerial attacks, only around 400 people decided to stay in Velyka Pysarivka.
Life on the front line
The strength of attacks precludes not only organized evacuation but besides any access of emergency services or humanitarian missions to the community. As a result, those who could not leave or chose to stay, either due to old age, solitude, the request to care for aged dependents, or the fear of being uprooted for an undetermined time and losing everything, are left with small hope of receiving emergency care services. Thus, the lives of those who stayed are reliant on the bravery and self-organization of volunteers, the police or village council employees, who hazard their safety to deliver aid or choice up those in request of medical care and transport them to the nearest “safe” places. Moreover, those from the “five-kilometre zone”, i.e. the areas closest to the border, whose property was destroyed, cannot receive any compensation as the police are incapable to access the areas to conduct the essential bureaucratic inspections.
As smallholding utilized to be the primary means of supporting households in these predominantly agrarian communities on the border, those who evacuated to the nearest safer zones, specified as Okhtyrka or Bilopillia, share their despair over losing their main origin of income – land and livestock. For apparent reasons, the evacuation of animals under shelling is unimaginable, just like their relocation to close places where internally displaced persons can only hope for a roof over their heads in temporary shelters or humble dwellings offered by volunteers. any farmers from Velyka Pysarivka share how they regularly take the hazard and drive back home to check on their houses, feed their livestock, and hope that they will find both their property and themselves unharmed. Others who do not own a car or are simply not ready to go to specified large lengths, had to let go of everything they had worked so hard to build.
The situation is not dissimilar in all the another border communities. Only 5 out of 970 people stayed in Ryzhivka, a village where the border with Russia sometimes cuts through the fences of private houses. Despite this “fun” fact – or what utilized to be considered as specified – even the residents of the Sumy region would have seldom been able to point out this “middle-of-nowhere” place on the map before the full-scale invasion. Recently, however, Ryzhivka caught the attention of even those far outside of Ukraine erstwhile subdivisions of the Freedom of Russia Legion, 1 of the paramilitary units that allegedly fight against Putin’s government and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, crossed the border there to launch an assault in the Russian Kursk region on March 12th 2024. At the same time, another paramilitary units, specified as the Russian Volunteer Corps and the Sibir Battalion, launched akin operations in the bordering Russian territories. However, the Legion fighters decided to enjoy Ryzhivka for a bit longer, utilizing it as the backdrop for 1 of the video updates posted on the unit’s Telegram channel with large frequency. As researchers from GeoConfirmed found out, what the Legion claimed to be the “liberated part of Tyotkino” in the Kursk region was in fact the Ukrainian village. Ironically, Aleksey Baranovskiy, a volunteer from the Legion who besides frequently garners publicity in Ukrainian media, responded to the criticism, explaining that video materials of the assault shot in Russian territory had not been published as they could “attract enemy fire”. Apparently, the safety of Ukrainian civilians surviving in the border areas is not a concern for the volunteer battalions and their proclaimed “pro-Ukrainian” mission.
While many Ukrainian Telegram channels and western Twitter accounts gloated over and even praised the actively broadcasted “advances” of the Russian paramilitary, akin to the reactions that followed Wagner’s sham rebellion in the summertime of 2023, the residents of the Sumy region were naturally not that amused. According to popular sentiment, the subsequent increase in aerial attacks and mass demolition , as well as civilian casualties and evacuations, is straight connected to this “special liberation operation”. specified an opinion does not seem to be groundless considering the timing and the fact that most KAB attacks were targeted at the communities bordering Russia from where the Russian volunteer battalions, backed by the Defence Intelligence of Ukraine, started their offensive. Similarly, the residents of the region do not share the joy from the news about the attacks on Russian infrastructure for fear of the retaliation that is traditionally aimed at civilians.
Hope for the future
Despite having to live in a constant state of anxiety accompanied by the hourly howling of air-raid sirens, those who decided to stay in or relocate to the “safer” towns, specified as Sumy or Okhtyrka that are any tens of kilometres distant from the border, express their optimism about the future. Moreover, on average, more than half of those who left their homes in the Sumy region after the start of the invasion have returned. The global Organization for Migration reports that, as of September and October 2023, 61 to 80 per cent of the pre-invasion population has returned to their homes in the Okhtyrka community. This comes as a surprise considering that another findings conclude that only up to 20 per cent of the population returned to their homes in Zakarpattia – the westernmost region of Ukraine. Moreover, settlements in the Sumy region are among those with the most severe surviving conditions in Ukraine. For instance, the conditions for return in the Okhtyrka community are ranked low erstwhile it comes to the levels of employment, purchasing power, recovery from residential destruction, and most importantly, safety and security. The situation is even worse in the neighbouring community of Trostyanets, the centre of which was the first city in Ukraine occupied by Russian forces and the first to be liberated a period later. Still, over half of those who previously left the community have come back.
In Okhtyrka, even middle-aged residents, let alone the elderly, who have usually never moved outside the town they were born in, immediately dismiss the thought of relocation. Although discussions about the plans for the close future are sometimes interrupted by casual tragicomic remarks about its improbability, the locals do not lose hope. “What else is there left to do?” is simply a typical rhetorical consequence to this puzzling question.
However, the community does not just hope. Despite the slow pace of recovery due to a shortage of specialists and bureaucratic hurdles faced by local authorities in accessing the funds allocated by the centre, the local government, civilian society organizations, activists, entrepreneurs and the general public have actively collaborated on designing a joint conceptual imagination of Okhtyrka’s long-term development. Notably, since the start of the full-scale invasion, the town has seen an unprecedented emergence in civilian society activity. In particular, its vibrant youth community has been organizing workshops, lectures, movie screenings and training for Okhtyrka’s younger residents. Further adding to this cultural renaissance, the local NGO “Centre for the improvement of Street Cultures” has been working on its mission of making the town “the second Bristol” (a city in the south-west of England – editor’s note) by organizing electronic music performances, street art and sports festivals, as well as creating urban spaces for active leisure.
Although specified examples of resilience and proactiveness are something to take pride in, the admiration of the adaptability of Ukrainians, especially by western leaders, prompts the question: why must they gotta adapt to war in the first place?
Frankly, before the full-scale invasion, many Ukrainians who were not personally affected by the war in Donbas were indifferent to it, or in more popular terms, “deeply concerned” about it. The distance to the war became much shorter after proceeding the notorious “I have made the decision” speech (Putin’s declaration of war against Ukraine in February 2022 – editor’s note) and seeing Russian tanks outside your windows. Yet, proceeding the explosions as if they were in your backyard, but later coming to realize that it was individual else’s – at first kilometres away, but then hundreds of metres distant – provided a fleeting sense of relief, shielded by the morally questionable outlook of “it was them, not us.” But the denial went distant as rapidly as the explosions got louder and the connection to the innocent people robbed of their lives became more immediate.
The war is already here, in Europe’s backyard. It took any Ukrainians 8 years to come to this realization. Hopefully, the 2 years of Russia’s brutal full-scale war against Ukraine and everything the West allegedly stands for have been adequate for Ukraine’s western partners to decision past the phase of denial and refrain from bargaining or acceptance erstwhile it comes to the current situation.
Anna Harmash is simply a second-year student of the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Programme in Central and East European, Russian and Eurasian Studies and is presently undertaking her studies at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. She is curious in foreign, defence and safety policies in east Europe, as well as national mythologies and culture in Central and east European states.
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