Written by Jerome Starkey, Russia Defense Editor
Sun stepped into sovereign Russia – despite the Kremlin’s threats to kill or condemn us – to speak to ordinary Russians left stranded by the humiliating withdrawal of their troops.
Bomb blasts echoed over the destroyed buildings as Olga, 23, a taxi dispatcher, said: “I wasn’t thinking about the war at all. I just kept working.
“House, work, home. I didn’t think about anything but my personal life.”
That all changed on August 6 when Ukraine launched a surprise attack from neighboring Sumy province and seized 1,300 square kilometers in Russia’s biggest defeat on home soil since the end of World War II.
Ukrainian President Zelensky claimed the attack was part of a master plan to help end the war.
Bomb blasts echoed over the destroyed buildings as Olga, 23, a taxi dispatcher, said: “I wasn’t thinking about the war at all. I just kept working.
“House, work, home. I didn’t think about anything but my personal life.”
That all changed on August 6 when Ukraine launched a surprise attack from neighboring Sumy province and seized 1,300 square kilometers in Russia’s biggest defeat on home soil since the end of World War II.
Ukrainian President Zelensky claimed the attack was part of a master plan to help end the war.
And he emphasized that ordinary Russians must “feel” the consequences of the war started by the tyrant Putin.
Olga said her mother and brother fled their hometown of Sudzhe, Russia’s largest city now under Ukrainian control.
But Olga was cut off by the fight and couldn’t cross the city to get to them before they fled.
We met her in a temporary shelter where Ukrainian troops were providing food and beds for the civilians left behind.
She added: “I stayed because I couldn’t leave. There was no evacuation.”
The statue of Lenin in the main square in Sudzhi was severely mutilated – only part of his trunk seemed to remain on the pedestal.
Behind him, the stately facade of the town hall lay riddled with artillery holes.
The blue and yellow Ukrainian flag fluttered from a makeshift flagpole.
Graffiti on the cobblestones mocked the Russian defenders for fleeing.
It was said: “Russians, learn to fight. Your conscripts are rotting in the forests.”
The Russian soldiers defending Sudzha were a mixture of border guards, conscripts and Chechens from the Akhmat Battalion.
One of the residents of Suža cursed them for running away so quickly
They said: “Our defense was so bad. There were no soldiers. That’s why we’re here.”
About 600 civilians still live in Sudzhi out of a pre-war population of 5,000, Ukrainian soldiers estimate.
They said it was difficult to say exactly because many had taken shelter underground.
While we were there, a man entered who had spent the last three weeks in the basement.
The soldiers said they saw him for the first time.
Pensioner Valentina, 76, another resident of the shelter, said she had tried to forget the war since she moved to Sudzha – from Donetsk in eastern Ukraine – five years ago.
She left to escape fighting that erupted in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists wrested control of Kiev.
Speaking from her dormitory bed, she said: “I never thought this war would be so big that it would come to a place as small as this.
“What is there to fight for?”
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin has said that Ukraine wants Russian territory to be used as a bargaining chip in any future peace talks.
Kiev claimed the country was a buffer zone to limit Russian attacks.
Zelensky also emphasized the importance of capturing 600 prisoners of war to be exchanged for captured Ukrainians.
The attack boosted morale in Ukraine and changed the narrative of the conflict after months of heavy losses in eastern Donbas.
He also turned the tables on Moscow and shattered the slowly calcifying myth of Russia’s inevitable victory.
She left to escape fighting that erupted in 2014 when Russian-backed separatists wrested control of Kiev.
Speaking from her dormitory bed, she said: “I never thought this war would be so big that it would come to a place as small as this.
“What is there to fight for?”
Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin has said that Ukraine wants Russian territory to be used as a bargaining chip in any future peace talks.
Kiev claimed the country was a buffer zone to limit Russian attacks.
Zelensky also emphasized the importance of capturing 600 prisoners of war to be exchanged for captured Ukrainians.
The attack boosted morale in Ukraine and changed the narrative of the conflict after months of heavy losses in eastern Donbas.
He also turned the tables on Moscow and shattered the slowly calcifying myth of Russia’s inevitable victory.
Categories: Optical Illusion
Source: HIS Education