Exclusive through Rebecca Wright, Sam Kiley, Olha Konovalova and Peter Rudden, CNN
Burnt tanks and trucks carrying the Russian “Z” lie on the side of the road, gutted and rust-red. A collapsed bridge is covered with landmine warning symptoms. Later, the remains of a car are found next to a destroyed fuel station surrounded by bombardment debris.
These are from a Ukrainian victory and, for now, from a Russian defeat.
As CNN became the first foreign TV team to enter Izium since the Ukrainians took it on Saturday, the team reunited with a city that was waking up to its new reality: that six months of racing were over.
Izium has now been “liberated,” along with almost the entire Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian military source told CNN. eastern Ukraine, and shows the speed and scale of Ukraine’s lightning-fast counteroffensive in the northeast.
Combined with a parallel offensive in the south, Ukraine has claimed a total of 6,000 square kilometers (about 2,300 square miles) of land, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday. Russia said the withdrawal of its troops from the region is “tactical,” in order to concentrate its resources in the Donbass region.
In Izium, operations continue to completely protect the city center. The Ukrainians seek to capture some Russian infantrymen still in hiding and all those who painted the occupation with them. The city also remains in a complete data blackout, with no phone or sign of knowledge: a tactic used by the Russians in the occupied territories.
From what the CNN team saw, citizens are relieved to see their city back in Ukrainian hands.
Although the streets of Izium were largely quiet, locals ventured out of their homes and saluted passing CNN cars or army trucks, and shook hands with any Ukrainian infantrymen they encountered.
But at the same time, concern for the Russians is still taking over the city. Most citizens contacted through CNN were too scared to speak freely about what had happened there in months.
A couple in their fifties agreed to speak, only their first names.
They celebrated Ukraine’s victory over the city, Valeriy said, calling it a “balm for the soul. “
“We prayed to God that the struggle and blood would be unleashed. And it happened,” he said.
The remote sound of bombing is a constant reminder that, despite the impressive achievements of this counteroffensive, the war is not yet won, and many parts of Ukraine still fall within the diversity of Russia’s heavy weapons arsenal.
But little by little, the Ukrainians are rushing to repair Izium and the other territories recovered to almost normal.
During CNN’s visit, an organization of Ukrainian infantrymen triumphantly descended into a smoking tank. With apparent joy, he was temporarily hooked to a Russian self-propelled artillery vehicle, abandoned intact by the retreating Russians. The weapon is one of the most resilient in the Russian arsenal and will be reused for the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
When asked if it was difficult combat to retake the city, the driving force of the tank that departed with the howitzer replied, “Not really. “
The Ukrainians obtained a large number of weapons in those battles in the northeast, as many Russian troops sacrificed their intact cars to escape alive.
One of the last clashes in the Battle of Izium, according to the Ukrainian army, took place in an old one that served as a base for Russian troops. The Russians had surrounded the building with deep trenches, earthen sacks and armored vehicles.
Construction has now been emptied, with piles of red bricks and radiators tangled with damaged windows and collapsed roof wood. Next to the construction is the hull of a red truck on the side, with the “Z” logo of the Russian forces. .
Further down the road is the construction those troops sought to protect: the Russian command center, hidden in a bunker on land, a disused factory.
Rows of matching desks covered the dark basement, with task titles attached to white labels, adding commanders of air defense, artillery, intelligence, and state security, as well as lower-ranking titles like “service officer. “Up close, Ukrainian troops still locate the traps that have been left in their lair, adding a trap cord with a grenade attached.
Another dark concrete room in front of the command center served as a bedroom, with old wooden doors placed horizontally over piles of bricks or jerry cans to create makeshift beds. the floor and beds.
A Ukrainian soldier showed CNN the green phone the infantrymen had left behind. “Russian technology!” he sneered, in English.
On the ground, the Russians left piles of ammunition.
In addition to the loss of weapons and the humiliating retreat captured in several videos and shared on social media, an army officer told CNN that several Russian prisoners of war had been captured across Ukraine.
Ukrainian infantrymen were victorious in spirit as they drove through the city, waving from their newly acquired tanks and trucks, many of them with the revealing “Z” already painted.
Valeriy, a resident of Izium, said the villagers were with the Russians for their behavior.
“Where there was no one, (the Russians) stole everything,” Valeriy said. “They lived like pigs. We enter a space, and the pigs live better. “
Valeriy said the fighting in Izium began on March 4, when 8 Grad rockets landed near his home, which made them “scary” but, fortunately, did not hit them directly. His next-door neighbor’s space was destroyed by one of the rockets, but he survived without scratching.
He said Russian troops who arrived in the city at the start of the war temporarily understood that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for the invasion, “denazifying” Ukraine, was a lie.
“A (Russian) gunner came and said, ‘Father, we kept it from the Nazis,'” Valeriy said. “And I said, ‘Show me one. ‘”
Valeriy said he spoke to the young infantrymen in Russian and tried to make them understand that they were destroying the relationship that once existed between Ukrainians and Russians, especially in this part of the country so close to the border.
“I told them that they had destroyed a man’s space and that he was from the Kursk region (in Russia),” Valeriy said. “Everyone here has relatives in Belgorod (Russia) and other cities. “
He said that at one point, Russian reconnaissance forces approached him and asked, “Who did we come to liberate here?
This confusion and sense of disillusionment among Russian troops is likely to be the main thing in their withdrawal from that region last week.
But the most damaging thing for Putin is that his army’s command and formula have collapsed in Kharkiv province. These senior officials fled their bunker, while their men abandoned their heavy weapons in their escape.
Ukrainian forces will try to keep them on the run and hope that one day they will return to Moscow with the story of what happened in Kharkiv and ask for a trial of their leaders.
El-CNN-Wire™
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