Izium, Ukraine
CNN
—
Burned-out tanks and trucks emblazoned with Russia’s “Z” symbol lie by the side of the road, gutted and red with new rust. A collapsed bridge is covered in signs warning of landmines. Further on, the wreckage of a car rubs shoulders with a destroyed gas station surrounded by debris from bombings.
These are the signs of a Ukrainian victory and, for the time being, of a Russian rout.
As CNN became the first international television crew to enter Izium since the Ukrainians recaptured it on Saturday, the crew encountered a city waking up to its new reality: that six months of occupation is over.
Izium has now been “liberated”, along with almost the entire Kharkiv region, a Ukrainian military source told CNN. The town is a huge strategic loss for the Russian military, which used it as a key base and supply route for its forces in eastern Ukraine, and shows the speed and scale of the counter-offensive ultra-fast from Ukraine in the northeast.
Combined with a parallel offensive in the south, Ukraine has reclaimed a total of 6,000 square kilometers (about 2,300 square miles) of land, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Monday. Russia said the withdrawal of its troops from the region was “tactical”, in order to concentrate its resources on the Donbass region.
In Izium, work is continuing to completely secure the town centre. The Ukrainians seek to capture some Russian soldiers still hidden and all those who worked with them during the occupation. The city also remains in a complete information blackout, with no telephone or data signal – a tactic used by the Russians in the occupied territories.
From what the CNN team has seen, residents are relieved to see their town back in Ukrainian hands.
Although the streets of Izium were largely quiet, residents sometimes ventured out of their homes and saluted passing CNN vehicles or military trucks, and shook hands with any Ukrainian soldiers they encountered.
But at the same time, fear of the Russians still grips the city. Most residents approached by CNN were too scared to speak freely about what had happened there in recent months.
A couple in their 50s agreed to speak, using only their first names.
They celebrated the Ukrainian victory over the city, Valeriy said, calling it “balm for the soul”.
“We prayed to God to be released without a fight and without blood. And it happened,” he said.
The distant sound of shelling is a constant reminder that despite the impressive gains of this counter-offensive, the war is not yet won – and many parts of Ukraine are still within range of the heavy weapons arsenal of Russia.
But slowly the Ukrainians are working to restore Izium and the other recaptured territories to something approaching normal.
During CNN’s visit, a group of Ukrainian soldiers tumbled triumphantly into a smoking tank. With obvious glee, they quickly hitched it to a Russian self-propelled artillery vehicle, left untouched by the retreating Russians. The weapon is one of the most powerful in the Russian arsenal and will be reused for the Ukrainian counter-offensive.
When asked if it was a tough fight to retake the city, the driver of the tank who left with the howitzer replied: “Not really.”
The Ukrainians gained a huge amount of weapons from these battles in the northeast, as many Russian troops sacrificed their intact vehicles in order to escape with their lives.
One of the final confrontations in the Battle of Izium, according to the Ukrainian army, took place in a former school that served as a base for Russian troops. The Russians had surrounded the building with deep trenches, sandbags and armored vehicles.
The building has now been gutted, with piles of red bricks and tangled radiators with shattered windows and crumbling wood from the roof. Next to the building is the hull of a red truck on its side, bearing the “Z” logo of the Russian forces.
Further down the road is the building these troops were trying to protect: the Russian command center, hidden in an underground bunker under an abandoned factory.
Rows of mismatched desks lined the dark basement, with job titles attached to white tags – including commanders of air defense, artillery, intelligence and state security, as well as lower-ranking titles such as “duty officer”. Nearby, the Ukrainian troops still find traps that have been left behind to protect their lair – including a tripwire with a grenade attached.
Another dark concrete room opposite the command center served as a dormitory, with old wooden doors placed horizontally on piles of bricks or jerrycans to create makeshift beds. The retreating troops had apparently left in a hurry, with clothes, toothpaste and papers strewn across the floor and beds.
A Ukrainian soldier showed CNN the green rotary phone the soldiers had left behind. “Russian technology! he sneered – in English.
Above ground, the Russians also left piles of ammunition.
Besides the loss of weapons and the humiliating retreat captured on several videos and shared on social media, a military official told CNN that a large number of Russian prisoners of war had been captured by Ukraine.
The Ukrainian soldiers were victorious in spirit as they marched through the city, waving from their newly acquired tanks and trucks, many of them with the ‘Z’ already painted on.
Valeriy, a resident of Izium, said townspeople were angry with the Russians for their behavior.
“Where there was no one, (the Russians) stole everything,” Valeriy said. “They lived like pigs. We entered a house – and the pigs live better.
Valeriy said the fighting in Izium began on March 4, when eight Grad rockets landed near their home, which was “frightening” but fortunately did not hit them directly. Their neighbor’s house was destroyed by one of the rockets, but she survived without a scratch.
He said Russian troops who arrived in the city at the start of the war quickly realized that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justification for the invasion – to “denazify” Ukraine – was a lie.
“A (Russian) gunner came and said ‘Father, we saved you from the Nazis,'” Valeriy said. “And I said to them, ‘Show me one.'”
Valeriy said he spoke to the young soldiers in Russian and tried to make them understand that they were destroying the once close relations between Ukrainians and Russians, especially in this part of the country so close to the border.
“I told them that they destroyed a man’s house, and he was from the Kursk region (in Russia),” Valeriy said. “Everyone here has relatives in Belgorod (Russia) and other cities.”
He said that at one point the Russian reconnaissance forces came to him and asked, “Who did we come here to liberate?”
This confusion and sense of disillusionment among Russian ground troops was likely a major factor in their withdrawal from this area last week.
But most dangerous for Putin is that his army’s command and control system has collapsed in Kharkiv province. These senior officers fled their bunker, while their men abandoned their heavy weapons in their flight.
Ukrainian forces will try to keep them on the run and perhaps hope that one day they will return to Moscow with the story of what happened in Kharkiv and demand judgment from their leaders.
