FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT
KHARKIV FRONT — The protected officers’ room it is found in the cellars of one of the many farms abandoned and damaged by the fighting. Two or three soldiers have the task of monitoring the images that spy drones continuously send, night and day, from the skies above the Russian positions. The forehead it’s a few kilometers away, between eight and nine. The generators for electricity are kept hidden under the vegetation. The patrols come and go, you can hear the sharp sounds of the secured machine guns when they reach the shelters: the soldiers make short reports to the commander, then throw themselves on the cots exhausted after whole days of walking with heavy backpacks and weapons in hand. An ambulance is constantly on alert to shuttle to the emergency room in the rear. There is a smell of sweat, mechanical oils, gunpowder and stale food.
THE advanced commands of the Ukrainian units on the war front are all very similar. And that of 13th Brigade of mechanized infantry in the north-eastern sector of Kharkiv is no exception. «Did Putin go to Kim Jong-un to look for weapons? Better, the North Korean bombs we know them: they are defective, obsolete, half fail, many explode in the barrels of the cannons, destroying them and killing the artillerymen”, says the commander jokingly, but not too much. He is 28 years old and has been a soldier since he was 18, his name is Sergei and he tells us his rank and battle name: «Major Jewchik» (spermatozoan in jargon), he does not want to reveal his surname: he is originally from Lugansk occupied by the Russians, fears that the Moscow secret police can rage against his elderly parents who remained “on the other side”.
The roar of the fighting is distinct from the long series of stands of trees all around, which delimit the agricultural fields that have no longer been cultivated since February 2022. The soldiers seem unconcerned. There is certainly no air of victory among them, but of relief. «It was much worse last month, when it seemed that the Russians might continue to advance towards the urban area of Kharkiv as they had already done two years ago. On May 11th we were hastily transferred from our positions in the Donbass to stop them. The first seven days were very difficult: we didn’t know the territory, it wasn’t even clear how far the Russian avant-garde had gone, we had to patrol it with patrols from our best scouts, who often paid with deaths and injuries”, continues the greater. In a few sentences he outlines the battle for Kharkivthe most important Russian offensive since the Bakhmut’s victory a year ago and that of Avdiivka in February. On May 10, 30,000 Russians invade two enclaves towards the towns of Lyptsi and further east Vovchansk. Putin talks about «buffer zones» aimed at preventing the Ukrainians from shooting up Belgorod, but panic is growing among the general staff in Kiev, they fear a greater breakthrough. The US Congress has recently defrosted i 61 billion dollars in arms to Ukraine stopped since October, which however are only arriving slowly.
There 13th Brigade helps save the situation, supported by Western weapons now rushed to Kharkiv. Some Italian guns also arrive. «Around May 25th it became clear that we were holding, the Russians were no longer advancing. Our fear was that Moscow would then decide to attack the now less protected Donbass: they did not succeed. Here in Lyptsi, in our sector over 5 kilometers wide, we pushed them back by almost a kilometer. They have had thousands of losses, unfortunately ours are not few either. The turning point then came on May 30th, when Joe Biden gave the green light to fire at their bases on Russian territory. All it took was a few American missiles on their ramps and they were forced to retreat, now they have logistics in chaos and they seem incapable of developing alternative strategies. Their maximum advance in our territory is currently reduced to less than 7 kilometers from the international border”, he adds.
The price of the battle three of the forty machine gunners who have just returned from three days on patrol on the outskirts of Lyptsi tell it. «The Russians’ strong point remains the greater number of drones and glide bombswhich are remnants of the Soviet period modified to make them more precise, can also contain 3,000 kilos of explosives. Terrifying!”, they say. Each day they had an average of four shootouts with Russian positions less than 100 meters away. Losses: 10 wounded. Now they have 24 hours of rest. Tomorrow evening we start again
