By Vitalii Hnidyi
BASIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) – Yurii Oliynyk sat milking his cows on his farm in northeastern Ukraine, hunkering down as fighting from his country’s new push into Russia raged on a few kilometres over the border.
He and fellow farmers in Ukraine’s Sumy region have already endured months of missiles, drones and cluster bombs flying over from Russian territory, killing their neighbours, wounding their cattle and destroying their buildings.
Since Ukrainian forces responded with a surprise advance into Russia’s Kursk region last week, there has been a pause.
The Russians have stopped shelling “because they were pushed away from the border at a distance longer than artillery range … It’s quiet now,” Oliynyk said.
But that could change back again with the fortunes of war. “Until we push them further away … our territory won’t be safe.”
For now, he is determined to stay with his surviving herd. “I grew up here, I was born here. I grew up here, it’s my land, my roots.” He is also on the local council. “And we agreed that I will be the last one to leave.”
For others in his neighbourhood, though, it is already too late.
Yurii Malovanyi was also determined to stay, until cluster bombs hit his land twice the day the incursion began, killing or injuring many of his 30 cows and calves.
“Everything was destroyed. I restored everything just a month ago,” Malovanyi said.
One bomb left a crater in his yard. The bodies of dead cattle lay in the dried mud. In a damaged storage shed, broken glass was strewn across a mountain of grain.
Malovanyi was preparing to evacuate, joining the more than 3,000 people who have fled border areas in the Sumy region over the past week, according to governor Volodymyr Artiukh.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday Russia had struck Sumy from the Kursk region across the border nearly 2,000 times this summer alone.
“I did not run away, I have been living here for the past three years no matter whether there were strikes or not,” Malovanyi said.
“I remained here on the ground. No manoeuvres. I did not even plan to leave. If it had not been destroyed, I would have stayed.”
(Writing by Dan Peleschuk; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
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