Meet the Soldiers Who Halted Russia’s Momentum

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR (voice-over): The first thing you notice approaching the front northeast of Kyiv are the lines of villagers waiting for humanitarian handouts. They receive a bag of bread and basics to get them through these difficult days. “The first week of the war,” a shell hit us near the greenhouse. “We barely survived,” says this woman. “We had help from strangers around us. They gave us bread and canned food. We wouldn’t have managed otherwise.” No one here knows when this war will end or whether Russia still has designs on Kyiv. The front line is about a mile away. For now, an uneasy calm prevails, ever since the Ukrainian defenders stopped the Russian advance here. It was February 28, they say day, four of the war. They want to show us how they did it. But, first, we have to clamber over the bridge they downed to see the armored column they managed to take out. The riverbank is littered with their skeletons. And this was a turkey shoot. Russian armored vehicles and tanks had come off the road to avoid the anti-tank mines, only to find themselves unable to cross the bridge and are unable to reverse in time. Ukrainian forces tell us none of the soldiers inside survived. A little further up the road, two tanks have been virtually smelted, blasted almost to Smithereens; 40-year-old Yevgeni, a veteran fighter, proudly tells us this was his handiwork. “We all here have one role, to keep the enemy off our land,” he says. “First thing they did after seeing the village, they started to shell houses just like that. They didn’t see us. They didn’t know we were here. So they just started to work on houses. And so I took the tank in my sights and I fired a rocket, and goodbye to him.” The destroyed vehicles are stamped with an O. The Ukrainian officers here tell us this identifies them as Russian units that entered from Belarus to the north. Oleg is the officer who commanded this operation. “As for now, looking at previous fighting we have had, I can tell you that we are trained better,” he tells me. “We have stronger morale and spirit because we are at home. They are afraid, but they go because they’re made to.” He’s been battle-hardened ever since the first Russian invasion in 2014. He says his side has enough weapons, ammunition and determination to win. “I can tell you I’m almost sure the Russians are regrouping and not retreating,” he says. “Besides, we are preparing ourselves to go forward. We’re not preparing just to defend here.” U.S. and British intelligence say Putin seems to have — quote — “massively misjudged” this situation and clearly overestimated the abilities of his military to secure a rapid victory. And this old lady tells us: “I have seen one war, and here we go again. I wish Putin would go away.”