{"id":1407095,"date":"2022-03-29T11:45:57","date_gmt":"2022-03-29T15:45:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1407095"},"modified":"2022-03-29T11:46:09","modified_gmt":"2022-03-29T15:46:09","slug":"in-villages-near-kyiv-how-ukraine-has-kept-russias-army-at-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/in-villages-near-kyiv-how-ukraine-has-kept-russias-army-at-bay\/","title":{"rendered":"In villages near Kyiv, how Ukraine has kept Russia\u2019s army at bay"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">24<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fin-villages-near-kyiv-how-ukraine-has-kept-russias-army-at-bay%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1407095&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/2022-03-29T150036Z_1_LYNXNPEI2S0SX_RTROPTP_0_UKRAINE-CRISIS-KYIV-DEFENCE_1.jpg\" alt=\"FILE PHOTO: Russia&#039;s invasion on Ukraine continues\" \/><br \/>FILE PHOTO: A Ukranian serviceman sits inside a Russian tank captured after fighting with Russian troops in the village of Lukyanivka outside Kyiv, as Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukraine, March 27, 2022. REUTERS\/Marko Djurica\/File Photo<\/div>\n<p>March 29, 2022<\/p>\n<p>By James Mackenzie<\/p>\n<p>LUKYANIVKA, Ukraine (Reuters) \u2013     The burnt wreckage of two Russian tanks with blown off turrets and several armoured personnel carriers attest the ferocity of last week\u2019s clashes in Lukyanivka village just outside Kyiv. The charred corpse of a Russian soldier lies in a field nearby.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere were mortars so strong that it was scary even in the cellar,\u201d Valeriy Hudym told Reuters on Sunday, two days after Ukrainian soldiers seized back control of Lukyanivka in a five-hour battle with the Russians.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTanks were firing, artillery, and machine guns. Everything possible was there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>More than a month since Russia\u2019s invasion, the defence of Ukraine\u2019s capital Kyiv has played out in ferocious fighting in places like Lukyanivka and the nearby town of Brovary to the east, Irpin and Bucha to the northwest and Makariv to the west.<\/p>\n<p>When the histories are written such towns and villages may be minor details, but they are where the Russian advance has been halted. Moscow promised at peace talks in Istanbul on Tuesday that it would drastically scale back operations around Kyiv to help the dialogue.<\/p>\n<p>In Lukyanivka, two hours\u2019 drive from the centre of Kyiv, residents recall warning Russian troops who had occupied their settlement to leave while they could.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have a neighbour called Svitlana. She told them openly to their face: \u2018Guys, go home. You will be killed here\u2019,\u201d Hudym said.<\/p>\n<p>The reversal has been repeated in areas around the northern half of the capital, as Ukrainian troops claw back territory lost in the first month of fighting in small battles, without scoring a decisive victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Russians do not have the forces to move forward, and (Ukrainians) don\u2019t have the forces to push them back to the border,\u201d said Serhiy Zgurets, director of consulting firm Defence Express.<\/p>\n<p>The Russian defence ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the military situation around Kyiv.<\/p>\n<p>But the small victories have dealt a psychological blow to a more powerful enemy and shown how nimble units with knowledge of the area can defend lines and even push them back, according to military experts.<\/p>\n<p>They also serve strategic goals \u2013 to keep Russian artillery further from the city centre and prevent the invading army from fully encircling Kyiv, the experts said.<\/p>\n<p>Cities including Kharkiv and Mariupol have suffered heavy bombardment as Russian ground advances stalled \u2013 part of what the Pentagon and other Western military officials describe as a sign of Russian frustration at the lack of progress.<\/p>\n<p>Kyiv has also been struck by shells and missiles, and at least 264 civilians have been killed according to city authorities. But the scale of devastation, particularly to the city centre, is far smaller.<\/p>\n<p>Russia describes its actions in Ukraine as a \u201cspecial operation\u201d with the aim of demilitarising its neighbour. It has denied targeting civilians.<\/p>\n<p>In Lukyanivka, Ukrainian soldiers drove away two apparently serviceable Russian heavy tanks captured during the fighting.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe knocked out the Russians. The Russians are now being moved a few kilometres away,\u201d said Marat Saifulin, from the Ukrainian \u201cBrotherhood battalion\u201d that took part in recapturing the village in an attack that lasted from noon until dusk.<\/p>\n<p>SETBACKS AND RESISTANCE<\/p>\n<p>CIA Director William Burns said in early March that the intention of Russian President Vladimir Putin was to seize Kyiv within two days of the start of the invasion on Feb. 24.<\/p>\n<p>Putin and Russian officials have consistently said that Russia\u2019s military operation in Ukraine has gone according to plan.<\/p>\n<p>However, two early setbacks suggested it would not be plain sailing for an available Russian force estimated by some diplomats before the war at around 190,000 troops. Russia has not given a figure for its deployment in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Russian paratroopers attacked Hostomel airport, a potential bridgehead northwest of Kyiv, on the first day of the invasion and, according to some reports, captured it. But heavy fighting there prevented a decisive victory, the reports added.<\/p>\n<p>Satellite imagery also captured a huge column of military hardware stretching 40 miles (64 km) and coming from a similar direction.<\/p>\n<p>Seen by some Western defence officials as a major threat to Kyiv in the first days of the war, by March 10 it had largely dispersed, with some vehicles spreading into surrounding towns.<\/p>\n<p>A senior U.S. defence official said in early March that Russia\u2019s advance on Kyiv, including the convoy, appeared to be stalling because of logistical problems including shortage of food and fuel, as well as low morale among some units.<\/p>\n<p>Attacks by small units of Ukrainian troops on advancing tank columns, in some cases using shoulder-held anti-tank weapons shipped in from abroad, were also a factor in bogging down Russia\u2019s military machine.<\/p>\n<p>To the east, in Brovary, a convoy of Russian tanks was repelled after several were destroyed in an ambush captured in dramatic drone footage released by pro-Ukrainian forces.<\/p>\n<p>To the north in Bucha, near Irpin, the town\u2019s mayor filmed scenes of burnt out tanks and armoured vehicles still smouldering after coming under fierce attack.<\/p>\n<p>In Irpin, Ukrainian forces destroyed a large bridge linking northwestern towns to Kyiv as a way of stalling the enemy\u2019s progress. On Monday, Irpin\u2019s mayor said Ukraine was back in full control. Reuters could not immediately verify his claim.<\/p>\n<p>The result of the flexible defensive strategy and Russian shortcomings has been no major advances on Kyiv for several days.<\/p>\n<p>In the city, where only half the peacetime population of 3.4 million remains, there have been signs of normal life returning to the streets, with some shops, restaurants and cinemas opening and people enjoying the spring sunshine in parks.<\/p>\n<p>Hopes that the immediate threat to the capital may be receding were fuelled last week by the head of the Russian General Staff\u2019s Main Operational Directorate.<\/p>\n<p>He said that the first phase of the operation in Ukraine had largely been completed and that Russian forces would henceforth concentrate on the Donbass region in the east.<\/p>\n<p>That appeared to chime with Western intelligence assessments that Russian forces had abandoned, at least for the moment, their active attempt to take Kyiv following heavy losses and unexpectedly stubborn Ukrainian defences.<\/p>\n<p>PAYING PENSIONS, POOR MORALE<\/p>\n<p>On many roads leading out of Kyiv, wrecked houses and debris show the price paid by those who decided to stay. Gas and electricity is often cut and there is no certainty about when and where the next missile might fall.<\/p>\n<p>In Krasylivka village, 92-year-old Hanna Yevdokimova said the invasion was her third conflict after the Soviet-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940 and World War Two, when she saw German troops march through the village.<\/p>\n<p>Last week, her home was hit by missile wreckage. A twisted fragment of a Russian Kalibr missile lay 100 metres (328 ft) away in a neighbour\u2019s garden.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat can I do? All I want is to rebuild so that I can die in my own home,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>Some residents of Lukyanivka said they spent nearly a month under Russian occupation as virtual prisoners in their own homes, their mobile phones confiscated and movement only permitted under armed escort.<\/p>\n<p>Now they can come and go as they please amid badly damaged houses.<\/p>\n<p>Near Makariv west of Kyiv, which is still contested, heavy shelling could be heard last week. Even so, the town\u2019s mayor Vadym Tokar travelled through surrounding villages wearing military fatigues and handing out pensions to the elderly.<\/p>\n<p>Farmer Vasyl Chaylo, from Peremoha, described what he said were fearful Russian conscripts, short on rations and disciplined by tougher professional fighters.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are afraid. According to my observation, some of them perhaps do not want to fight and want to surrender, but they are kept in line by special forces,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Chaylo added that he had asked tank crews who set up outside his house how long their dry rations would last and been told a week. \u201cThey came to us on the eighth day and said that they had nothing to eat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Russia\u2019s defence ministry has acknowledged some conscripts have taken part in the conflict, after earlier denials by the Kremlin and military authorities. The ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment about rations.<\/p>\n<p>Halyna Shybka, a former nurse in a military hospital in Kyiv for 25 years, ignored the entreaties of her grandchildren and remains with her husband Mykola in the house in Kalynivka, near the frontlines of Brovary, where they have lived in since 1974.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey tried to persuade us in every way they could to leave with them, but I wanted to stay,\u201d she said, pouring cups of tea in her small kitchen, the sound of outgoing Ukrainian artillery fire rumbling in the background.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cThis is our land, we\u2019re not going to leave.\u201d<\/p>\n<p> (Editing by Mike Collett-White)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FILE PHOTO: A Ukranian serviceman sits inside a Russian tank captured after fighting with Russian troops in the village of Lukyanivka outside Kyiv, as Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukraine,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1407095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1407095"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1407095\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1407095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1407095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1407095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}