Russia’s glide bombs are devastating Ukraine’s border towns – but residents are digging in

Askold Krushelnycky travels between the cities of Sumy and Kharkiv, dodging craters left by Moscow’s onslaught. He speaks to residents who say the Kremlin will never drive them out, despite trying to bomb the area into an uninhabitable 'grey zone'

A Ukrainian serviceman prepares a shell with the inscription ‘for Kharkiv’ (Reuters)

Driving from the northwestern Ukrainian city of Sumy to Kharkiv, around 177km south (110 miles), along a road that roughly parallels the border with Russia, the damage from Moscow's relentless bombardment is stark.

The road is scarred by potholes and craters from shells, rockets and bombs – with the remaining asphalt, churned up by heavy military vehicles.

This is agricultural country. In some fields Ukrainian soldiers are building bunkers and defences of razor wire and concrete “dragon’s teeth” – to ensnare tanks. In others, tractors drive on freshly-ploughed soil for planting with wheat, sunflowers, rape seed and other crops.

Near the community of Krasnopillya, about 40km (25 miles) from Sumy, a soldier said a glide bomb dropped by a Russian plane had killed a civilian a few days earlier. He advised: “Don’t listen to music in your car. Pay attention to any sounds because there’s everything flying around in the air here – Russian drones, planes, artillery. Yesterday a [glide] bomb landed close by and left a crater two metres deep.”

Glide bombs are becoming a central part of the intensifying Russian bombardment in the northeast. They are Soviet-era bombs fitted with newer kit such as folding wings and a form of navigation system. They are dropped outside the range of Ukrainian air defences and are then guided into their target. They can carry hundreds of kilograms of explosive, enough to destroy a building. Hundreds of them are being dropped a week across Ukraine, 700 in six days near the end of March, according to Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba. Kharkiv itself, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has also been hit by glide bombs in recent weeks.

A Ukrainian explosive technician examines the site of a missile strike in Kharkiv (AFP)

About halfway between Sumy and Kharkiv lies Velyka Pysarivka, reached after crossing two small bridges which had been shattered by explosions but made passable in a jerry-rigged fashion. Many of the buildings on either side of the road have been damaged by explosions and the place seems deserted until an elderly woman slowly emerges from a little timber and brick house behind a blue-painted wooden fence.

Nina told The Independent that most of her neighbours had left or been evacuated in the preceding weeks. Nina, 85, refused offers by government officials and volunteers to evacuate her. She says her husband died many years before Vladimir Putin ordered the invasion of Ukraine and she shares her home with another elderly lady who moved in after most of their neighbours fled. She says that she stocked up on food as the fighting picked up and volunteers occasionally bring some food basics. “Perhaps I’m too old to be scared,” she says. “Nobody can avoid death and I want to die in my own home.”

Closer to the centre of Velyka Pysarivka, Lida, 80, and her husband, Alexei, 86, are trying to clear some of the rubble and broken furniture of their house. The remains of a piano jutted out from under the debris of their shattered roof. Lida says they had been in a small “summer” kitchen in their garden when a rocket from a Russian plane hit, ripping off the roofs of both structures and almost completely destroying their main house.

Alexei and Lida amid the ruins of their house (Askold Krushelnycky)

“Miraculously neither of us were injured,” she says, “Then a few days later they hit our home again. I suppose they wanted to try to kill us again,” she said, her eyes crinkling with a smile, “But you can see they didn’t succeed.”

Most of their neighbours had left or been evacuated with many in temporary accommodation in the nearest town of any size, Okhtyrka, around 40km west.

Lida insists that she and her husband will remain, although it seemed unrealistic they would be able to rebuild their home. With unseasonably warm weather, the couple have been sleeping in a makeshift bed in the remains of their summer kitchen.

The damage throughout Velyka Pysarivka is almost total, and the vast majority of buildings, including a women’s clinic, school and administrative offices, have been badly damaged. The few who remain, like Lida and Alexei, have been left without electricity, gas or water and cook on wood fires.

The only other vehicle is a police car with a solitary policeman, who says he does not know how many of the community’s pre-war population of 5,000 to 6,000 will return.

“Hundreds of shells have dropped here and in other parts of Sumy region near the border over the past month,” he says, not giving his name. “Many people have been killed and many have been injured. How many people are going to risk coming back here and possibly losing everything again if they rebuild?”

The roads approaching Kharkiv are lined with the ruins of people’s homes and their livelihoods. The city has faced multiple attacks daily for months but with a savage uptick in recent weeks.

Volodymyr Zelensky inspects fortifications near the Russian border in the Sumy region last month (Reuters)

Vladimir Putin tried to take Kharkiv in the first days of the invasion and the city’s population dwindled from 2 million to some 300,000 as people fled the intense fighting. But after Russian forces were repelled people started to return and the population reached around 1.2 million last year.

But Mr Putin wants to make the area uninhabitable it seems. Just after the Kremlin-choreographed presidential election last month that extended Mr Putin’s more than two decades in power, he ominously raised the prospect of creating a “grey zone” in Ukrainian territory.

Ever since, Mr Putin’s forces have been pummelling small towns and villages fringing the borders with Russia, but with even more attacks on Kharkiv. Military sources in Kyiv suggested to The Economist this week “that Russia has resolved to make the city a ‘grey zone’, uninhabitable for civilians”.

Mr Putin’s “grey zone” desire was almost certainly sharpened by the incursions of anti-Kremlin Russian rebels into their home country and the increasingly efficient and longer-range Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia.

In order to try and create this grey zone, Russian forces have not only terrorised residential areas but also targeted electricity-generating infrastructure, which has led to lengthy blackouts. Without power, industries and businesses have a diminished ability to provide the jobs and revenue for the administration vital to keep the region economically viable.

Dmytro Bulakh, 41, is a prominent member of the local government and is respected for his work heading up the independent and influential Kharkiv Anti-corruption Centre. For the past year he has served in the Ukrainian National Guard.

Dmytro Bulakh says Putin has given up on taking Kharkiv (Askold Krushelnycky)

Speaking to The Independent shortly after two glide bombs hit the city, he said that in one way, he welcomed the suggestion that Mr Putin wants to make it a grey zone – as it means he has probably given up on the idea of capturing the city.

“I was born here and my parents and grandparents are also from Kharkiv so it may seem strange to say but the Russians’ talk about turning us into a grey zone is a kind of progress because it’s an admission that their first plan – to capture Kharkiv – has been abandoned,” he says.

He adds that the relentless attacks on Kharkiv has again led to an exodus and the city’s population is now probably down to between 700,000 to 800,000 people.

“As to the grey zone... the Russians can have all the desires they want but the question is whether they can turn these wishes into reality – and I don’t think they will be able to," Mr Bulakh says.

“From her initial plans to take all of Ukraine, Russia was forced to adjust to take a few of the regions and now intends to create some grey zones. I believe that the final version of these plans will be to leave our country. I’m more interested in what our plans are to make that happen.”

Mr Bulakh believes that speculation by some Ukrainian sources that Russia may again try to capture Kharkiv later this year “is unrealistic and their grey zone hopes proves that”.

But for Ukraine to push out the Russian invaders, Mr Bulakh, like almost every Ukrainian speaking to the media, repeated the pleas for the US Congress to resolve the political infighting that has, for months, blocked aid from America, Ukraine’s most important source of military aid.

He said: “We need the means to prevent and counter their grey zone plans. We need F-16 fighter planes and air defence systems like Patriot, that can destroy their aircraft that launch the glide bombs, artillery ammunition and missiles to strike back at them and the relevant training that will make these effective and we will take care of the job.”

He blames Western overcaution and fears about “provoking” Mr Putin for vital military supplies coming in too little and too late for increasing the number of those killed and giving Russia the incentive to continue its aggression.

“It would have been less costly in all senses if there had been decisive action instead of one step forward, two steps back,” Mr Bulakh says. “Ukraine’s allies must not repeat historic mistakes. Don’t wait for another Dunkirk or Pearl Harbour. The faster you respond, the more you lessen the sacrifices.”