'Make peace, you two Vladimirs': the battle for Mezhova
Pink peonies are blooming luxuriantly near Hanna Kovalenko’s house. Pots, bottles, and rags are drying on the stakes that enclose the flower bed. Next to Hanna’s yard stands an empty neighboring house — its roof already destroyed by shelling. In her own home, windows were blown out, so she boarded them up with planks. Despite this, the 78-year-old woman smiles as she talks about her household:
“Well, I am working with the flowers here, or dealing with the weeds, and then in the fall, I transplant the flowers by the house. Just so everything looks nice. I love to work, and flowers — they are our joy.”
A kerchief is tied in a knot around Hanna’s head. Over two T-shirts, she has pulled on a brown woolen vest. Even though it is a June day, the rain starts several times. It is fresh on the street. And loud. She raises her hands upward, waves at the sky, then crosses herself. A drone flies over the house. That is how she usually “communicates” with the “birds” that fly past.
“Well, how to put it, is it scary, children. Death is one. As God decides, so it will be. If it flies, it flies. I do not run. I do not ask for anything, only peace on earth. Will it end soon? But no one knows when it will end — only two eagles know when it will finish. Make peace, you two Vladimirs! How long can you keep running around the yard?”
Hanna Kovalenko is one of the last residents of Mezhova who is not afraid to live under drones. Once, more than 7,000 people lived in Mezhova. Now, according to the village head’s count, there are just over 400.
She built her white-brick house “with four hands” together with her husband. Her husband died long ago, yet Hanna still wears her wedding ring. Kovalenko has lived in her native Mezhova for half a century. Now the settlement is crumbling before her eyes.
She goes down to the basement, which she built herself in the summer kitchen, when it gets too loud. She sleeps there too, although after loud impacts, she cannot close her eyes until morning. When the woman tells how terribly Mezhova is being shelled, she covers her face with her hands and cries. That is how Mezhova sounds: between explosions and the buzzing of drones.
"They want to kill me here"
At dusk in Mezhova, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, a house is burning, its roof about to collapse. Optic fiber glints across the vegetable gardens. The sound of a drone echoes in the air every ten minutes. Most of the UAVs are Ukrainian, but one never knows for sure. After all, Mezhova is in the A virtual zone on the battlefield along the front line where, due to the widespread use of attack and reconnaissance drones (UAVs), there is no fixed line of defense, and any movement of equipment or infantry is extremely dangerous.kill zone. The line of contact is now 15 kilometers away.
This settlement used to be a logistical center for Ukrainian troops defending Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. Now the front is approaching it.
Another local, Oleh Ptytsia, has stayed in Mezhova even though his family (wife, daughter, and granddaughter) left for Odesa. While we are recording the interview, the sound of a drone rings out in the sky. The man first hides in a shed in the yard, then comes out with the words: “Ours, ours.” Despite several drones flying over his house during the 10 minutes we talk, he does not want to leave just yet.
“They are burning houses — they are fighting with houses. If we have to, we will leave. To abandon everything we have earned … when it gets really bad, we will do something,” Ptytsia says.
Mezhova used to be the rear for fighters of the 108th Separate Assault Battalion “Da Vinci Wolves.” They would switch to armored vehicles here and drive on. Half a year ago, Mezhova became their positions.
“This job has worn me out — they want to kill me here,” jokes the drone operator with the call sign Teplyi when an explosion sounds above the basement of the house. The Russians are methodically wiping out all the buildings so they cannot serve as cover for Ukrainian fighters.
“Guided aerial bombs started coming in densely. People started leaving. We started looking for positions. Then the a derogatory term for RussiansMoskals brought their pilots closer, and here a big activity of Molniyas, and FPV [drones] began,” says Dubok, an FPV pilot with the Da Vinci Wolves battalion.
Now the Da Vinci Wolves enter Mezhova only in armored vehicles and only in bad weather. Regular pickup trucks are out of the question as enemy drones monitor the roads.
Although Russian drones make logistics to Mezhova extremely difficult, the enemy assault groups are not storming as actively in summer as they could during the green season.
“The Russians are moving in our direction. They cross through the tree lines from their positions one or two at a time, trying to gain a foothold that way. Not many make it,” says Husky, an FPV pilot with the Wolf’s Pack unit. He is controlling the remote, flying toward an already-hit Russian near the tree line and, as if to prove the point, finishing him off.
Walking with a cow
Many people whose homes the front was approaching had moved to Mezhova earlier. Mezhova became a shelter for those fleeing the war.
Maria is one of them. First, her son comes out onto the porch (he looks about 20, with a mental disability) and then calls his mother. Maria lets us enter the house. The sun has already set, and the house is dark. There is no electricity in Mezhova. Maria is wrapped in a jacket as it gets cool in the house toward evening.
Maria left Novopavlivka on foot with her family and … a cow. Novopavlivka is 10 kilometers from Mezhova, partly in the gray zone. Maria’s mother used to live in Mezhova. The mother left, and Maria moved into the empty neighboring house because it has a wood-burning stove (the parents’ house is all electric). During the conversation, Chubatyi from the Da Vinci Wolves, who is escorting the hromadske journalists, asks why Maria does not want to leave further. He says volunteers will find her a house.
“Listen, I hear everyone say this: whoever moves, they live there two or three days, and then they are kicked out and told, ' Look for something here’. I have a child with a disability, and where am I supposed to go with him?” Maria asks rhetorically.
Chubatyi argues that houses are not worth a penny; life is much more valuable than a house or a household. But Maria holds on to the cow as she sells milk to the last residents of Mezhova. The cow grazes under drones. And there is plenty of grass in Mezhova this summer because no one is mowing it anymore.
“If it gets worse, we will leave. Not a problem. I left Novopavlivka, and I will leave from here,” Maria says at the end.
The sun is setting in Mezhova. Night FPV drones go out hunting; it is dangerous to walk around the settlement because the enemy will definitely see us on a thermal imager. For the night, we hide in the basement where the military are working. The house that was burning at dusk is still smoldering; the war with houses is in full swing.