Life On The Ukraine-Russia Border Has Been Ravaged By War — Peace May Not Be Much Better

KOZACHA LOPAN — Under a gloomy sky from which all kinds of projectiles rain down, I walk the final two kilometers of my journey to Kozacha Lopan. In this Ukrainian town on the Russian border, both sides fight day after day. Riddled with holes left by anti-tank mines and targeted by Russian drones, the straight road crosses in absolute desolation, a disturbing open space where the only thing I see are some dead dogs and the impact of explosions in a fratricidal war.

Without seeing a single vehicle or person, I reach a small bunker where two soldiers stand guard. Never moving out of the concrete block behind which they are sheltering, they ask for accreditation and a passport. And even though it is a combat zone where the press is prohibited, they let me continue.

Subjected to an information blackout and only mentioned in the media as a statistic (number of deaths, drone attacks or infantry assaults), Kozacha Lopan was once a peaceful border town between two sister countries, Ukraine and Russia. Today, it is nothing more than a desert of ruined buildings and burnt-out vehicles. In addition to the continuous roar of the artillery that crosses it from side to side, it shares two other characteristic elements of any active frontline.

First is the absolute emptiness. You can walk from one end to the other without seeing a single soul, be it civilian or soldier. Second, and even more sinister – if that was possible — it displays that confusion typical of places where people only had time to move the wounded and dead – charred barricades and remains of projectiles are everywhere. In short, you see the chaos of an unfinished battle that has been taking place here since Russia began the invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Constant risk

Yet even in these dramatic circumstances, necessity forces people to risk their lives or, as they ironically say here, “play Russian roulette.” That means having to leave the house or shelter for food and medicine. Although almost the entire population has been evacuated (about 4,000 people), there are still a handful of residents who survive — it is not clear how, in this terrifying scenario.

Yura, an older man with a firm step, and Lida, a middle-aged woman who is no less determined, are two of those residents, who sometimes have no other option than to risk their lives to eat or receive medical care. Neither of them owns a car; they met by chance on the street, and walk together in that strange stillness that, in the absence of explosions, fills the apocalyptic landscape of scorched ground and shrapnel remains. “Going fast is fine. I’m feeling strong,” Yura says, as if being able to make the journey depended only on his good physical condition.

The drones see you from far away.

“Yes, it is fine, because right now there are no bombings,” replies Lida, who had traveled more than a kilometer through the town without seeing anyone.

Here, in this small village in Kha province, the most feared enemies is neither aircrafts — which bomb it weekly —nor the artillery — which rains down on it day and night — but the drones. And not just any drones: kamikaze drones. The ones that blew up the large number of civilian cars you can now see burned here and there. One of the cars was that of Leonid Loboyko, a Supreme Court judge who died heroically last September as he was trying to evacuate three women –who survived with serious injuries.

“The drones see you from far away,” explains Lida, who cannot say where she would go in case of an attack, as there are no large housing buildings in which to take refuge like in Bakhmut, Pokrovsk or other towns that have gone through the same ordeal.

A hired rescuer

Suddenly, Yura breaks away onto a path from which he turns to make a slight farewell gesture with his hand. Where is he going? Hard to tell in this territory where you don’t know where you can find drinking water, an occupied house or food.

So now the only one left is the brave Lida, with her good advice and company. I have already told her that my 50-kilometer journey on foot would end when I reach the center of this border town with Russia. Because she is going to take shelter in her house as quickly as possible, she suggests I go to a safer place with Viktor, one of the last two people in the village who works as a delivery man, taxi, ambulance or whatever is needed, on the four wheels of his old ZAZ Made in Zaporizhzhia.

Suddenly Viktor, a hired rescuer who has survived the sudden visit of countless drones, appears. “Get in!” commands this 60-year-old of unquestionable audacity. “I’ll get you out of here but you’ll pay me well. First, we have to go get a woman who has an injured leg.” And off we go, crossing the entire town once again, without seeing, even for a second, a single civilian or soldier anywhere.

Once we have reached the little house where the lady needing rescue lives, Viktor and the lady’s husband try to get her into the car as quickly as possible. Already back on the move, and once again as fast as his rickety petrol-powered ZAZ can travel, we head toward the village exit, passing through lines of distorted vehicles, the rubble of huge KAB missiles and even a GRAD rocket embedded in the ground in the middle of the road.

Only 1,670 meters from Russia

A couple of kilometers further south, passing the military checkpoint at the village exit, Viktor greets two unshaven soldiers who poke their heads out. They are the same uniformed men I saw this morning — and yesterday, when I had to abort my first attempt to enter the village due to the intensity of bombings, which took the life of a 52-year-old man who had gone out into the garden to feed his dog. Today, however, with the Russian fire less intense, a window of opportunity opened, even more so thanks to the fact that these soldiers have let me through despite it being a “red zone,” an area closed to the press.

“Before, it was possible to come. Now it is very risky,” says Vladimir, a mature man who, despite his own warnings, is going to venture with an old bicycle into the Kozacha Lopan, which we have just left behind. “If I don’t go by bicycle, nobody will take me. Paying for a car ride is very expensive,” he says, looking sideways at Viktor, who hides behind the undoubted risks of his job to charge a very high price for each ride. Kozacha Lopan has always been a key point for the transport business.

The railway customs that linked the very important railway line from Kharkiv with the no less important Russian city of Belgorod – just 50 kilometers from the border – was right here. At these small stops, now torn down to pieces, officials asked for passports and checked suitcases, although without excess since the relationship between both countries was good, with all kinds of facilities intended for the free movement of goods and people.

There are only 1,670 meters from the end of the village of Kozacha Lopan to the line on the ground that marks the Russian border, so Russia’s occupation of this town required hardly any effort. During the very first days of the war, the population remained locked in their homes, watching thunderous rays of light pass over their heads toward the south, where the city of Kharkiv is located. It was Russian artillery fire, something that had not been seen since the Red Army liberated Kozacha Lopan from the Nazis on Aug. 10, 1943, when it was part of the Soviet Union.

Despite everything

A few days after the March 2022 invasion began, the Kremlin’s armored vehicles broke into the town, and then, yes, the physical occupation came, and with it, the back and forth shooting, as well as the first victims. The city’s mayor, a 62-year-old woman named Lyudmila Vakulenko, remained in office during the six months of the Russian occupation. As she stated, and as confirmed by a good part of the residents, she always remained faithful to the Ukrainian constitution and government.

But after Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive that precipitated the departure of the Russians on Sept. 11, 2022, Vakulenko had to undergo a political cleansing process from which she emerged free of all blame. Even so, a number of voices have branded her a “collaborationist,” and she even appears today on one of the lists of “traitors” managed on the internet by opaque nationalist organizations such as Evocation.info.

Kharkovites have been disadvantaged and even marginalized.

In short, it could be said that towns like these, close to the eastern border with Russia, are perhaps those in which it will be most difficult to heal all the wounds inflicted to date. Kharkovites have been disadvantaged and even marginalized since the Euromaidan events (after which several of the parties they had voted for were outlawed; their language removed from the media, schools and libraries, etc.) and subsequently invaded by a Kremlin that wrongly considers every Russian-speaking person to be Russian.

Kharkovites have had neither the privilege of embodying an ethnically and culturally paradigmatic Ukraine (like those of the western half) nor the conviction that their future should take place outside of Kyiv (as has happened in large parts of Lugansk, Donetsk and practically all of Crimea).

Despite everything, and in view of what has happened, there is no doubt that these people are inclined to remain in Ukraine, although only time will tell what their place will be after what may come out of the current negotiations between Russia and the United States.