On New Year’s Eve in a patch of forest along the north-east border with Russia, a unit of Ukrainian territorial defence forces stood guard in their trenches.
Ukraine’s most senior defence officials have said they believe Russia will attempt a second invasion from the north in the next couple of months, using troops who have been training for the past three months since being mobilised in October. But the Ukrainian forces defending the border say the Russians will not be able to break through as they did in February, when the Sumy region had no defensive lines.
“The coordinates of all the roads are known and as soon as [Russian forces are on them]: ‘Bam’,” said Andriy, a 52-year-old commander, using his hands to show ammunition hitting a target. “Then there are swamps, and let’s not get started on the mines.”
At night, the Ukrainian defence forces are alone in the forests and fields. It is pitch black and silent. The area was considered remote before the war; now, they say, only a handful of residents remain in the nearby villages. Between their positions and the Russian forces a few kilometres away are some forests, swamps and a couple of highways, so they must blend into their surroundings as much as possible. Those on patrol can only be made out from the faint moonlight, reflected slightly by the snow on the surrounding fields.
Those off duty sat underground, preparing a new year’s feast in a brightly lit, wood cabin-esque kitchen, one of several they built after being stationed along the north-east border four months ago. Off the zigzagging, metres-deep muddy corridors of the trenches, there were also several sleeping quarters and even a sauna.
These isolated positions do not carry the battle status of Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions, such as Bakhmut, but their importance should not be underestimated. They constitute the first line of defence if Russia decides to reinvade from the north, and their success could determine more than just the fate of Sumy region.
During the February invasion, Russian forces broke through in several places along the northern border with the intention of surrounding and occupying Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and thus seizing control of the centre of power.
The Sumy territorial defence units have been credited by western military experts and commended several times by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, for thwarting Russian attempts to establish supply corridors from Russia through Sumy to eastern Kyiv – their actions thereby contributed to saving the central command in the capital.
Videos from March show members of these units, some in their civilian clothes and equipped with little body armour and few rifles, destroying Russian tanks and taking Russian soldiers as prisoners. Two men involved in the defence of Sumy said the 50 or so professional forces that were in the regional capital on 24 February were ordered to go to another area that evening, leaving them and about 400 other untrained citizens to protect the city.
Ukraine’s territorial defence units consist of people who volunteered to take up arms, the majority of whom did so on the day Russia invaded or shortly afterwards. Some of them have previous military experience, while others do not.
Ukraine’s northern frontline has been static since the Russians were pushed out in the spring. The Russians periodically shell the border areas “just to scare” Ukrainian forces rather than as part of a build-up to a fresh offensive, say the men.
Both Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov, and the commander-in-chief of its armed forces, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, have named February as a possible period for attempted re-invasion. However, the country’s chief of defence intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, has said the threat of a second northern invasion is low but possible.
In a recent interview with the New York Times, Budanov described Russia’s movement of equipment into the area as a “disinformation campaign” to draw Ukrainian forces away from the battles in the east. He said his intelligence body had not yet detected the type of offensive units required for an invasion in the border areas with Russia and Belarus.
Spokespeople for Budanov and the ministry of defence did not respond to questions on why the two held different assessments.
Serhiy, who defended Sumy city until the regular army arrived in April, said now there were mines, defence lines, troops and equipment in the region, whereas last February there had been almost nothing, so it would be illogical for the Russians to try again. “[But] they don’t have to follow logic as we know,” said Serhiy.
On New Year’s Eve, Russia launched a barrage of rockets and drones throughout the day and night targeting Kyiv and other big cities, killing at least one person and seriously injuring more than a dozen others. Russia also shelled the border region in Sumy almost 120 times, according to Ukraine’s general staff. Luckily for the men, their position survived unscathed.
In the trench kitchen, the men described who they used to be before the war – a teacher at a sports college, a cement trader, a property developer, an academic.
For some, it has been nine months since they have seen their families. Even though they mobilised voluntarily, they are obliged to stay until the war ends or it will count as desertion. They only get leave in the event of extenuating family circumstances.
They have become a sort of family of their own – with different trenches cooking and often inviting each other for dinner. For new year, one man’s relatives had posted a cake to the post office in a village south of them. Two people were in charge of cooking and they had bought a small tree that they were decorating, while others played draughts.
But their proximity to Russian forces was difficult to forget entirely, despite the festive spirit. The day after they arrived at their position in summer, they were shelled 136 times, they said.
“If we had the weapons, we would just finish them,” said Andriy. “We just want this to end.”
