The withdrawal of Kherson sounds like a stinging setback for Moscow, already forced to abandon the Kharkiv region (northeast) in September.
But the Ukrainian authorities have been cautious since Russia’s announcement of this withdrawal on Wednesday, expecting to have to continue to fight to conquer this regional capital, the only one taken by Moscow since the start of its offensive.
300 km from Kherson, in the village of Stepnoguirsk, on the east bank of the Dnieper, where Russian troops are likely to stay or push further towards the town of Zaporijjia, Mr. Gamiï remains focused on his mission.
Owner of the only tractor still in working order, he supplies his village with water, drawn from a spring in the fields.
A high-risk mission, in this last locality before the front, where Russian withdrawal or not, the shootings remain daily.
“Everything seemed calm this morning, and suddenly I get this,” the man said, showing the remains of a Grad rocket the size of a loaf of bread in his hands.
“I heard the whistle for a split second and then the explosion,” he told AFP.
“When you’re on a tractor, it’s very scary,” he adds.
– Natural shield –
The Dnieper, Ukraine’s main river, is becoming a natural shield for Putin’s troops in full retreat to the east.
And if the Ukrainian troops want to follow them in this movement to go into battle, they will have to cross the Rubicon and pass on the east side of the bank.
But in the area of Stepnoguirsk, south of Zaporijjia, the front has not moved for months. But the missiles continue to cross in the sky, to the greatest incomprehension of the villagers.
In this village of 1,500 inhabitants, life boils down to shelters and cellars and the rare outings to get supplies.
And from the basements of the village cut off from everything, the news of this war which concerns them in the foreground is very scattered.
“We do indeed hear that things are happening in Kherson”, says, jaded, Lioudmila Okopana.
“We are waiting for our soldiers to finally arrive in our direction, but it hasn’t happened yet,” adds the 58-year-old Ukrainian.
In this part of the front, we fear more than anything that the progress of the Ukrainian army, which nevertheless seems to have accelerated in a spectacular way in recent days, will be stopped dead by snow in the weeks to come.
Winter complicates the face to face for the two armies, both for the men confronted with the cold and for the engines of the vehicles, but also for their projectiles which lose in precision and aerodynamics in the covered skies.
In the event of a freezing of positions, the advantage here would be with troops from Moscow, who are likely to regroup and be reinforced by next spring.
– Frozen forehead –
For Lioubov Gajoula, who is tasting an apple pie cooked on a gas stove, the war must be over before winter, otherwise it will drag on forever.
“If the fighting stops, we will find ourselves like people in the Donbass region for eight years,” said the 62-year-old woman.
This war, which began in eastern Ukraine in 2014 by pro-Russian separatists backed by Moscow, got bogged down until last February in a low-intensity conflict, with no progress on either side.
“Eight years of bombardments for nothing, I certainly don’t want to,” comments the retired farmer.
In this region around Zaporijjia, spared by the occupation, the inhabitants fear becoming the consolation prize of the Russians after the withdrawal from Kherson.
The possible debacle of the regional capital could make the region of Zaporijjia, which goes to the Sea of Azov, an area of territorial continuity, priority to capture.
“As the front was not moving here, we ended up saying to ourselves that the Russians would not get to us,” said engineer Lioudmila Okopna.
Her neighbour, Mrs. Gajoula, fears the arrival of the “liberators”, as she ironically calls the Russian troops.
“They crush everything in their path, you shouldn’t trust them,” she says.
Mr. Gamiï, the tractor driver is also an alarmist. He had taken out a loan from the bank for his machine, hoping to pay it back by working in the fields. The bank is now threatening him with seizure.
“I told the bank they could come and get the tractor. But they never came.”
