‘Putin has more men, but our mentality beats any weapon’
As 10,000 Russians rally on the border, Ukrainian troops in Slavhorod say they are ready for a spring offensive. Photographs by Jack Hill
When Russian tanks began thundering over Ukraine’s northeast border into the Sumy region last year there was only a handful of professional Ukrainian soldiers and no heavy weaponry to stop them.
“People had no idea what was happening,” Vitaly, a volunteer from the border village of Slavhorod in Sumy, said. As the reality of the Russian invasion sunk in, volunteers began arming themselves with petrol bombs while others in the newly formed territorial defence rallied vehicles to surround a column of Russian armoured vehicles.
They torched the cars, leaving the Russians nowhere to escape before dragging them from the fighting vehicles, which they commandeered for themselves.
A year on, after some heavy toil in a workshop, a fresh paint job and new ammunition, the captured
