Kopyansk, Ukraine - The front line is now a river, the Oskal, that runs through the center of the eastern Ukrainian town of Kopyansk. On one side are charging Ukrainian forces, who have almost completely pushed their Russian enemies out of the northeastern Kharkiv region this month in a massive counteroffensive.
From her bedroom window, 26-year-old Lisa Adovic looks out on the other side, where the Russians have retreated. The sound of fire from Ukrainians has rocked his apartment for the past few days, as the Ukrainian army moved into Kopyansk and the town became a battlefield. Russian tanks and armored vehicles still patrol the streets, but the Ukrainians are driving them, using the Russians' own weapons against them.
Udovic began to count the seconds between hearing the deafening sound of the cannons starting and the smoke appearing in the distance. From Tuesday to Wednesday alone, the gap lengthened, increasing from 9 seconds to 13.
"They're pushing back," he said with a smile.
Oskal became a shield for the Russians on September 9. As the Ukrainians closed in, the invading forces crossed the bridge and blew it up behind them to slow Kyiv's advance. And Kupiansk was suddenly cut off from its other half. The next morning, 55-year-old Lena Danilova saw confused Ukrainian cars on the city streets. A man beside him put a hand on his sleeve, pointing to the different uniforms of the soldiers patrolling the area.
“Look, these are our boys,” he whispered to her. Danilova said as she wiped away tears of joy.
"Finally," he said. But then he had a sick feeling. Her two children were stranded on the other side of the river. He went to study in a school there a few days ago. It is now the line where the Russians are desperate to stop Ukraine's further southward advance into the occupied Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
After Kopyansk was captured without a fight just three days into the battle, the town at least escaped Russian bombardment. Now people here are facing some of the horrors of war that other Ukrainians were going through just months ago. They waited and hoped for Ukrainian independence, many said, but they never imagined it would happen: the threat of Russian shelling, no power in the city and no way to get basic medicine. Locals quickly packed up their essential supplies and evacuated in a rush with volunteers this week, revealing images of the first days of the war.
Valya, 58, left her cats behind. They had bowls of water on the floor of her apartment, and she left a key with her friend to feed them.
With only Russian state television channels, a Kremlin propaganda tool, available in Kapiansk for the past six months, people have been deprived of independent news about what is happening in Ukraine. The Russian government forbids the media from even naming the war, preferring to call it a "special military operation" and information is tightly controlled.
While leaving with her mother, Udovic was asked if she knew about the atrocities committed by Russian soldiers against civilians in Bucha, including torture and murder - which made major international news in April. Adok nodded.
"Bucha?" Udovik said. "I think I've heard something about it, but I'm not sure." She said the Russian channels she sometimes watched were instead focused on how Europe was facing an energy crisis this winter with Russia's natural gas flows declining.
People are hushed about what happened during the occupation because they say part of the population sympathizes with Moscow and neighbors may inform neighbors if Russian troops return. Udovik's own family was torn apart by him. Her grandmother stopped talking to her sister when she hung a Russian flag outside their house.
On February 27, just three days after Russia's unprovoked attack, the mayor of Kapiansk, Gennady Matsigura, posted a video on Facebook admitting that he had surrendered the city to the Russian military. Matsigura was a member of the pro-Russian party of Ukraine.
"Today at 7:30 a.m. the Russian battalion commander called to propose negotiations," he said. If refused, the city would be attacked 'with all consequences'. I decided to participate in negotiations to avoid casualties and destruction in the city.
Udovik, a self-proclaimed Ukrainian patriot, recognized that Matsegora would almost certainly be considered a traitor. But his own feelings are complicated.
"For civilians, of course, this decision probably saved lives," he said. "We didn't hear the explosions we're hearing now. It was quiet at first, but we knew it would all start eventually.
The Russians used Kupiansk as the seat of their occupying government. A propaganda radio station, called "Kharkiv-Z" - the letter "Z" has become the symbol of the Russian military - is spread in local shops. Residents could only call Russia. Even without formal annexation, the town became so integrated into Russia that Udovik even made a kinship visit to Vladivostok, a Russian city in the Far East near the North Korean border. Moscow-based authorities announced that people could obtain Russian passports.
Danilova said she is forced to send her children to school, even though she knows the Russian curriculum will be taught. People were threatened that their parental rights could be revoked if they did not do so. Others said they feared the strict 8pm curfew because there were rumors of people disappearing if they were caught outside the earlier time.
The Russians used Kopyansk as a transportation hub, moving hundreds of tanks and armored personnel carriers through and to what was then the front line. Some of those vehicles have returned - trophies of the Ukrainian army left behind by the Russians during their retreat.
On Thursday, as the sounds of gunfire echoed out of the city, the sound of shells falling on the Free Bank of the river was barely audible — a sign that the Russians' munitions depot in Ukraine was under attack and an immediate withdrawal. may end after which forced them to abandon or destroy much of it
On the road to Kopyansk, the Ukrainians were carrying pontoon bridges, preparing to cross the river and continue their advance. The sign proclaiming the city, painted in white, red and blue - the colors of the Russian flag - was ripped apart and left in ruins.
