{"id":21139,"date":"2024-04-08T09:05:47","date_gmt":"2024-04-08T09:05:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/08\/when-home-is-now-the-front-line\/"},"modified":"2024-04-08T09:05:47","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T09:05:47","slug":"when-home-is-now-the-front-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/08\/when-home-is-now-the-front-line\/","title":{"rendered":"When Home Is Now the Front Line"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/02\/26\/multimedia\/00Ukraine-frontline-villages-chbp-promo\/00Ukraine-frontline-villages-chbp-facebookJumbo.jpg?resize=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"When Home Is Now the Front Line\" title=\"When Home Is Now the Front Line\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the hourly artillery duels, airstrikes and pitched fighting in the country\u2019s east and south have turned the more than 600-mile front line into a scarred frontier. Parts of it may be uninhabitable for years, if not decades. Villages and towns are destroyed. Fields are mined. Roads are barely recognizable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But clinging to the wreckage of their homes, and hometowns, are residents who refuse to leave. Buoyed by volunteers who deliver aid and their own battle-hardened survival instincts, they carry on with their lives in an unending test of endurance. The reasons they stay are many: to care for disabled family members, to look after pets or livestock or, plainly, their love of home.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But in enclaves where the thuds of artillery serve as white noise, war is never far away.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In the southern port city of Kherson and the villages around it, residents have endured months of Russian occupation, a cold winter without electricity and an unending barrage of artillery shells.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Some left after the initial Russian occupation and returned in November 2022, after Ukraine\u2019s military retook the city, but weekly evacuations continue. Kherson\u2019s current population is around 60,000. Before the war, almost five times that many people lived there.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Hundreds of miles east of Kherson, in Ukraine\u2019s Donetsk region, a stretch of land is defined by rolling hills and the slag heaps from the mines that dot the landscape. Despite the echo of war, the coal mines in the area continue to operate, just as they have since the 19th century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Deep in a mine near the city of Pokrovsk, 21 miles from the front, Volodymyr Kyrylov had the war on his mind even though he could no longer hear the shelling 2,000 feet below ground.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHow could I forget about the war down there, if I have my family, children and my mother, who is on her own, up there?\u201d he said. \u201cI try to finish my work as quickly as possible and then return to the surface again and call to check in with them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">To the north near Kharkiv, six miles from the front line, residents live in range of Russia\u2019s lethal artillery. Last fall, Halyna Stychnykh, 78, waited for the Red Cross team in front of her house in the village of Iziumske. Bundled in a thick coat, she held tight to an envelope holding her personal documents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">With the war on her doorstep, she had made the decision that some Ukrainians living between the guns are still unable to make: to leave. \u201cWe took four bags,\u201d she said of the day she fled the town that had been her home for 50 years. \u201cWe only took clothes. Everything else is left behind.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ukrainian soldiers refer to some of the civilians who remain, visible from the slits of their armored vehicles and trench lines, as \u201cthose who wait.\u201d The phrase is seen as a dig at the possibility these lonely residents are actually waiting for Russian troops to arrive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In Ukraine\u2019s south, where hopes of a Ukrainian counteroffensive ended in failure, the front line is only four miles from the town of Huliaipole. Around 1,500 residents remain, and on a cold day late last year, Halyna Lyushanska, 79, was the only patient at the town\u2019s battered hospital.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Ms. Lyushanska said that her only income is her pension, roughly $100 a month. She once worked on a horse farm, but now she and her 50-year-old daughter, who looks after her, have lost most of their animals and livestock. Unwilling to leave, they grudgingly rely on assistance from the government and volunteers to stay warm.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cThe mayor had promised pallets for us to warm up during the winter,\u201d she said from her hospital bed. Officials always promise aid, she said, but \u201cI was never expecting any help; I know that\u2019s just lies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">As the war in Ukraine enters its third year, she knows that daily life for her, and for other civilians who remain in the shadow of the front line, will only grow more desperate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">But residents said that no matter how long it lasts, how many shells are fired, how many cold winters pass, there will always be those who stay, tethered to home.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/04\/08\/world\/europe\/when-home-is-now-the-front-line.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the hourly artillery duels, airstrikes and pitched fighting in the country\u2019s east and south have turned the more than 600-mile front line into a scarred frontier. Parts of it may be uninhabitable for years, if not decades. Villages and towns are destroyed. Fields are mined. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21140,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/02\/26\/multimedia\/00Ukraine-frontline-villages-chbp-promo\/00Ukraine-frontline-villages-chbp-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8240,148,5627],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21139"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21139"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21141,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21139\/revisions\/21141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}