DW correspondent Nick Connolly traveled with a delegation of Ukrainian soldiers to the Russian city of Shuja, following the Ukrainian advance. The locals have no electricity, water, telephone. The Russian city of Shuja at the southern end of the Kursk region, opposite the Ukrainian city of Sumy, has been under Ukrainian control for a week and has been in a state of war for two weeks. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the area on the Ukrainian-Russian border, where Ukrainian forces began their surprise advance into Russian territory.

Ukraine has allowed journalists to accompany Ukrainian troops into the area to get a first-hand view of the city on the other side of the border, in territory now under Ukrainian control. DW’s Ukraine correspondent Nick Connolly was there.

“We don’t want to keep these lands”

The Ukrainian government said the surprise invasion of Russian territory, which Western allies such as the US and Germany say they were not informed of, was an attempt to create a “neutral zone” as Russia launches airstrikes in northeastern Ukraine. from the southern part of Kursk.

The fact is, however, that the border area northwest of Kharkiv is only a small part of the border with Russia, which stretches a total of 2,300 km. So, while Ukrainian control of this area can make a difference for a small Ukrainian city like Sumy , its overall impact may however be small.

Oleksiy Dmytraskivskii was appointed representative of the newly formed Ukrainian administration in the Kursk region. As he tells DW, the aim of the operation was to send the message to Russia that the conflict is not a one-way street. “We don’t want to keep this area, we don’t need it,” he told DW. “We had to do it, to show our enemy that he is also vulnerable, that he is not omnipotent.”

Ghost town

Nick Connolly reports that those residents who were unable to escape have been without power, drinking water and cell phone signal for two weeks. DW’s war correspondent’s visit to Sunja lasted a few hours, under the supervision of Ukrainian soldiers. He did however talk to locals he found sitting outside on the street near a basement where they spend the night to be safe. Apart from these few people, the streets are empty and dangerous, with potentially explosive mines and other damaged machinery. Only the hum of generators producing electricity can still be heard in the city.

A woman who only wanted to be addressed as “Nina” tells DW that she was not given the chance to leave and that those she knew did so in their own cars. “Nina” lives alone. Her daughter lives far away. The day before, as she says, a friend of hers died and she had to stay here to bury her. Another woman says that the day before, while she was in shelter, her house was destroyed, probably by military fire. Oleg, a middle-aged man, says he had come to work in Sunja when the fighting broke out, and has been trapped ever since. “We didn’t understand what was happening. Since then I have stayed here. My parents back in the village are 84 and 83 years old. I don’t know what has happened to them, they don’t know what has happened to me,” he says characteristically.

Memories from Butsa

After Connolly’s talks with locals, the Ukrainian administration’s representative in the region pulled out his computer and began showing video from the Ukrainian town of Butsa, outside Kiev, where Russian troops allegedly committed war crimes in their bid to take over Kyiv in 2022, without success.

Some soldiers told a DW reporter off camera that they hoped that if they showed ordinary Russian citizens what was done “in their name” in Ukraine, they might wake up and question the narrative of Russian President Putin, who still speaks of “special military operation in Ukraine”. This is how the short visit to Sundza came to an end.

Editor: Dimitra Kyranoudis