Ukrainians feel that have resisted the first stage of the Russian invasion.

In big cities like kyiv, Odessa or Kharkov, visited by Clarion in recent days, the feeling does not change: nobody believes that nothing has been lost and it is celebrated that in the most dramatic stages of the siege, where the Kremlin troops advanced the most, finally the enemy had to retreat and retreat.

The prevailing idea is that the local Army has shown signs of knowledge and courage and there is hardly any fear of Russian military supremacy, which perhaps was not such. Still in pain for the exiles and deaths in the occupied areas, on the streets of Ukraine they tease russia. It is not underestimation, but a collective way of build security and convince yourselfperhaps, for what is to come.

This week another eloquent satellite image of the war went down in history. It shows three dozen Russian T-90 tankettes, piled up like scrap metal on the banks of a river.

It is seen that some tried to cross and were sunk in the middle of the riverbed, because the Ukrainian artillery first managed to detonate the pontoons and then smashed the machines one by one. The exact location: Siverskyi Donets River, in the Lugansk region.

It is an example of the systematic way in which Russia has been steadily losing endowments. Every time you try to advance a meter, waiting for a crouching resistance that fights back and most of the time bites and hides again.

This ultimate image is not a random metaphor. Local experts speak of “bite strategy”a beast that appears, hurts, hides, reappears, hurts and leaves its victim to drag.

Burned vehicles and charred trees on the banks of the Donets River. Photo: Reuters

In this way they explain second great partial victory of Ukraine in this war. If the first was to get the Russians to leave kyiv, the next was to have managed to secure Kharkov, the second largest city in Ukraine, as huge and disproportionate as the capital.

The political center of Kharkov is a ruin, with neighbors who Clarion visited and they still sleep in the subway stations today. But the area is secured. The Russians withdrew from the occupied villages and, according to the Government, there is no longer a chance that they will fall missiles in abundance as it happened between March and early April.

All Ukraine celebrates the images of tanks stacked in the river. Memes are made on social networks and jokes are also returned when other news about Russia’s attempted political colonization of occupied areas appears.

Russia announces that it is preparing to carry out two separate referendums to finish politically annexing Kherson and Mariupol and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dimitry Kuleba, responds with sarcasm.

“They can annex Mars or the moon or what is sung to thembut in no way are we going to grant them those areas and we are going to end up removing them from there”, he told local journalists.

Kharkov subway cars, converted into permanent homes. Photo: Sergio Araujo/ Special Envoy

That rhetorical security, which spares no jokes, lowers people who feel empowered. Now that the initial fears have passed, Ukrainians accept that the fight continues and that there will be no need to go but live with war

In this context, a word nests in the collective conversation. that word is counteroffensive. Are the conditions ripe for launching a massive counterattack against the Russians in eastern Ukraine? When will it happen and how? Is it possible to think directly, rather than to stop the invasion, to expel the Russians from the whole country?

On local television, where they only talk about that and that maybe this year Ukraine will win the Eurovision Song Contest, analysts discount that it is a matter of time. They are ambitious in their views: they say that as soon as the powerful weapons from the West finish arriving, then Ukraine will bet on recovering Crimea.

It should be remembered that on March 8, when the Russian fire seemed unstoppable, it was President Volodimir Zelensky himself who was willing to negotiate Russian sovereignty over Lugansk, Donetsk and Crimea, today the main base of his navy in the Sea Black.

“We can discuss and find a compromise on how these territories will continue to live,” the Ukrainian president told the US network ABC ten days after the start of the invasion. However, he clarified: “I am ready for a dialogue, not for a surrender.”

In the last days, The Greens are happening. His discursive game varied from a dialogical and diplomatic opening to a new rhetorical ferocity.

In the speech on May 9, an hour before Putin made his from Moscow, the Ukrainian president was blunt.

“We remember the victory of the coalition of nations against Nazism, we celebrate that victory and soon we will celebrate another one,” he said. It was expected that after that, Putin will declare total war against Ukraine (the Kremlin speaks of a “special operation”), but in the end the Russian leader limited himself to saying that they will continue with their intention to secure the East of the country.

A British intelligence report released this week confirms everything: the Russians have withdrawn from Kharkov, leaving positions very vulnerable. The Ukrainian army advances. Russian losses are notable. They may regroup to protect what they already occupied since before the war in Donetsk.

all these elements mobilize popular sentiment in Ukraine. “It is very clear that they could not do more than conquer specific villages or regions. In the Donbas they were already there. Kherson took it quickly because it was close to the Crimea and they mobilized the army from there as soon as the invasion began. His attempts to capture the big cities they were a fiasco and the losses they have had are seen. They won’t say it but they know they failed”, said a brave Christina, a translator by profession.

Anatoli and his 14 kilo machine gun, ready on the front lines. Photo: Sergio Araujo / Special Envoy

“We are going to blow up the Crimean bridge and I want to see them there”said soldier Alex, enlisted in the territorial defense, but now resting in a cafeteria in kyiv.

A striking fact is that those who return from the front do not even take off their fighting uniform when they rest. That is why it is funny to see through the streets of the capital the soldiers skateboarding. Not because it is light, the image should confuse: for everyone, in this immense and sovereign country, the war continues. The countdown to a counteroffensive seems to have begun.

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