The fate of the key port of Nikolaev is likely to be decided on this concrete site in southern Ukraine. Russian troops are moving out of the occupied city of Kherson to shell villages on its once-peaceful plains, and Ukraine claims the counterattack is pushing them back.
In one minibus leaving the village of Luch, there are five adults who say that only 10 out of 18 houses survived. “There is no electricity, gas, water or heat,” says one woman, adding that the school has been demolished. In the back seat, another Luch resident adds: “Only those who can’t leave remain.”
Seated in the back is Galina, 75, who was born in Tambov, Russia. She smiles thoughtfully, remembering her late Ukrainian husband, with whom she left to live from Russia. She is shaking and crying on the seat in front of her. “This have not happened before. I’m cold inside, I’m shaking. So scary”.
Ukrainian soldiers on the road are nervous, and the three young soldiers briefly point their guns at a CNN crew, despite journalists wearing “press” on their safety vests, before apologizing.
Ukrainians’ anxiety on the road is likely heightened by fear of Russian saboteurs, as well as a recent warning from regional governor Vitaliy Kim that separatist fighters from Donbass are attacking local residents suspected of having links with the armed forces.
Within minutes, troops on the same highway had fortified their position at the checkpoint with felled trees and tires, the changing road conditions reflected in their ever-changing presence.
On Tuesday, the Ukrainian military destroyed several Russian military helicopters at Kherson International Airport, new satellite imagery from Planet Labs shows. The images show a large black plume of smoke rising from the airport and several burning helicopters.
But the Ukrainian positions nearby are imperfect: trenches dug in farmland along the highway are riddled with shell marks. Some of the soldiers are local – one points to his area in the city, while others are from the nearby city of Odessa, which is ultimately Russia’s target on the Black Sea coast.
The conditions under which they survive are astonishing: this is not a trench network of Javelin missiles or complex NATO arms shipments. Damp stoves boil water, while trees and earth form the roofs of shelters. Every night, Russian Grad missile systems target them; According to the soldier, as a result of intense shelling, at least one of the servicemen received a shell shock.
However, their morale seems to be higher than that of the Russian troops they captured more than a week ago when a Tiger armored personnel carrier launched an unsuccessful attack on a nearby roundabout.
One Ukrainian soldier said of the captured Russians: “They said they couldn’t understand what was going on. They cannot return because they are shot there for retreating. So they advance or surrender.”
In the farmland around the highway, rocket tips stick eerily out of the arable land – a danger for years to come and an indication of how random bombings can be.
In Nikolaev, a large queue of women and children has formed, as several buses snake around them. Soldier Alexander waves goodbye to his son through the bus window before returning to the southern defenses of the city.
Another man, a former sailor, helps push his wife and daughter through the crowd into the transport. “This is my wife Zhenya and daughter Varvara. She is leaving for Poland. Then I return. I’m going to …” – he said, pointing his head towards the front line. “What should I do? Am I going to Poland? No, this is my country, I will stay here.”
Dusk sets in with sirens and the distant rumble of artillery fire that occasionally hits housing estates in the city. A curfew has been imposed for several weeks, enforced by police patrolling eerily empty streets. Their blue lights often stop wandering drunken locals. This is slow work. Each phone must be checked for suspicious photographs of military installations.
Suddenly, a call comes in for help with an urgent delivery of blood from surgeons at a key hospital. Police blue lights drastically illuminate the four-story building – when darkened, the hospital appears almost invisible in the gloom to protect it from Russian airstrikes.
The bombardments of Nikolaev became fierce and indiscriminate. Sunday was the worst example, when a rocket hit a magazine, killing nine people immediately. One of them was Svetlana’s husband. She sits alone in a hospital room, her arm bandaged, her frail body trembling. “So sad,” she cries. “Now everyone is gone.”
Svetlana’s loss is exacerbated by the death of her daughter in the Czech Republic, away from the war, earlier in the week. She and her husband were shopping for wake candy when a bomb went off, depriving her of the only person she had left.
“We went to buy sweets to remember her,” she said. “Then the rockets fell and my husband just exploded and the blood went out of his head. And he is still lying there in the blood and they brought me here. And I am here and he is there. In pieces.”
The hospital staff did their best to treat her injured arm, but they are too overwhelmed to look after her well-being in the coming months. Blood still on her coat, she hobbles slowly out of the hospital door and through the cold, barren yard back into town.