Families serve together in the Ukrainian army during Russian invasion

In a shallow trench in a narrow strip of trees, which provides the only cover in this Ukrainian landscape in the Mykolaiv district, a man hides with his two adult sons.

It’s your first war together. Their first time as soldiers. When Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded their land, they joined the army as a family and signed up to fight.

Yaroslav is a 59-year-old grandfather. One of his children, Nazar, 34, has two children. The other, Pavlo, 26, has a daughter.

They left their wives and children to go to the front and stay together in their battalion.

Fighting with his family and for his family makes his mission “very easy and simple,” Yaroslav told CNN .

“What can I say, we love our country and we will fight for it until the end,” he said.

The men acknowledge with a nervous laugh that it might not be so easy for those who stayed at home, particularly for Yaroslav’s wife, who has her husband and children in the crosshairs of danger.

“Our mother certainly cares about us,” Nazar said. “She is nervous. Also, our wives and our children worry. But still, we are here, standing for our land.”

Russian forces are just a few kilometers away, officials say – not only in the artillery range, but also at the risk of sniper bullets. The trenches are in Mykolaiv, close to the Black Sea coast, and the territory desired by the Russians.

The force commander, also called Nazar, is just 37 years old. He said he lost four soldiers in an attack – this was his worst day in the war.

He was serving in the army and fought against Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine in 2014, the year Russia annexed the Crimean peninsula. When the invasion began, he signed up to fight.

“An enemy came to our country, to our house, cowardly during the night, without a declaration of war and started bombing our towns and villages,” he said.

“They went to Kiev, entering the suburbs of Bucha and Irpin. We have no other choice. We are defending our land, we do not enter anyone’s house. We are not Russians who break into other people’s homes. We are protecting our families, our children, our parents.”

He said he was fighting to secure the whole of Ukraine, including areas to the east, which are currently under Russian control, and Crimea.

For now, he has to confine his soldiers to hiding places near the trees, which border flat expanses of farmland and scrubland.

If he spends too much time in any village, he said he was afraid to give reasons for the Russians to attack him.

Artillery attacks are already common around these villages near the front, according to one of the villagers, named Anatoly.

He said his next-door neighbor was killed the day before an attack that destroyed his home. But he wanders around the village where he has lived all his life, saying he sees no reason to leave now.

Asked about the Russian army, a few kilometers away, he was irritated. “What can I say? They do bad things.”

In another village, farther from the front, a woman named Tatiana Bozko told CNN what happened when Russian soldiers were in the region, before Ukrainian forces forced them to retreat.

They took her husband, a former pro-Ukraine teacher who worked at the village school, she said. Bozko said to CNN who believes that some of her neighbors who support Russia have denounced her husband to the invaders.

“Sirgey was a very bright and kind man,” she said, “the lifeblood of any party.” “He was hated only by those who are pro-Russian.”

He was taken from the house, and she never saw him again.

His corpse was found days later, in a ditch under a mattress. Someone noticed a hand sticking out of hiding, with other signs of torture – bruises and what looked like cuts.

“He was raped. He was very scary,” Bozko said, crying. “He was shot while he was alive, apparently.”

Bozko, a 60-year-old retired teacher, now lives with thoughts of her husband’s last moments. Three things bring her comfort: her son, her mother, whom she helps, and the Ukrainian army.

As he tells about his family to CNN , she pauses to highlight the sound of bombardments in the distance. There were mortars being fired.

She now knows the difference between those who come in and those who leave. These are coming out on the Ukrainian side against the Russians, she says with a smile. “It makes me happy to hear them.”

Source: CNN Brasil

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